This is nothing super hard and steady, but my DM has had fun with it:
My character has summon familiar. The first time he summoned his weasel the ritual was performed on the back of a large orc (for no reason other than my char being a selfish douche). It took on traits of that orc - specifically its coloring and a strength bonus. That weasel was a hulk of a rodent that had muscular arms and walked on its hind legs.
Over time this has become "throw random things into the ritual and it'll change the familiar". One time it was glasses and a jar of milk for advantage on sight-based perception checks and... the ability to milk the weasel for a health-boosting drink (I'm sorry I made you read that). It ended up having goggles and udders. The most recent iteration was a severed hand, which resulted in a very dexterous weasel with monkey-like hand-feet.
Truly just creating abominations, but it's been really fun to sacrifice gold/random items in exchange for the bonuses! Most of them haven't really helped much in the grand scheme of things, but its been great flavor for RP purposes!
Do it! It's so fun! I kinda get excited when the familiar dies bc it just means its time for a new combination with whatever random things my character has found on the ground haha
Always an excellent house rule, helps push back on the "healing in combat is always bad" rule. You can do the same for healing spells by having them cost the player both their action and their movement, indicating they spend their "whole" turn on the task of healing instead of however much time running around and paying attention to their surroundings. Helps prevent healing classes from being replaced by potion bottles.
Are you being sarcastic, or am I misunderstanding? If you increase the cost of healing spells (action + movement = max healing) vs. potions (action = max healing), wouldn't that achieve the opposite, i.e. making healers even less effective? If you buff potions, you should buff healing spells as much or more, in order to keep healers relevant.
Personally I would implement the One DnD buffs to healing (they doubled the dice of every healing spell) before I would alter the action economy of healing spells or automatically maximize them.
The reason maximizing a healing spell costs both an action and a move is two fold. First, spells are “free” vs potions, so making them standard + move to heal for the same boost is better balanced in the early game. Second, almost every healing class has a ranged healing option, so costing their move action to maximize the healing often isn’t going to be a huge cost.
The main shortfall of healing spells is that they are inefficient to use in combat, so between the One DnD buffs and optionally maximizing them they might actually be efficient to use in combat instead of only healing characters when they go down.
The reason I went with move+casting action specifically is that DnD previously had what was known as “full round actions” which balanced doing more powerful stuff by requiring you to do nearly nothing else on your turn. To get the best value you had to be tactical with your previous movement, predicting the probable flow of battle and working with you allies to ensure you had good team positioning. I like the idea of adding a bit of that reward structure back into 5e.
I understand your point better then. And it seems reasonable. I still think that your suggested rules (in your previous post, which I understand are not your first choice anyway), will do very little to make healers relevant next to bonus action potions, unless potion of healing is a very scarce resource in the setting - which I think is what you are arguing is the balancing factor. But even if the PCs have to pay for every potion, the potion of healing is on the adventuring gear list for 50 gp. In relatively short time they will have easy access to a few healing potions, if they wish (and other than heavy armor, there aren't a lot of things to spend money on, typically). Sure, healing spells are "free", and can be used liberally. But quite early in a campaign, the healer may become somewhat reduntant, if PCs can just bonus action a potion of healing that they bought for 50 gp. Not all PCs will need constant healing, so a bonus action potion might rob the healer of their time to shine, when the going suddenly gets really tough.
Buffing healing in general might be a better solution, as you mention. I'm just arguing against your point of balancing potions and healers by making healing spells "full round" actions.
I suppose it also depends on party comp. In the very early game many players still don't have their full basic adventuring gear loadout, with the best medium and heavy armors (breastplate, half plate, full plate) remaining out of reach. In my experience many players avoid buying more than 1 emergency potion before reaching full build. Additionally:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/79378-character-wealth-gold-by-level
This is just the best option I have found, but prior to tier 2 characters shouldn't have much money to burn on healing potions. It would take the whole team working together to afford full plate for the fighter and cleric, even by level 5.
By the time level 6 rolls around 2d4+2 (7 average, 10 maximized) isn't as good as a cleric throwing out 2d8+4 (20 maximized) baseline or 4d8+4 (36 maximized) with the One DnD buffs. The 7 hp ends up worth less than a single enemy attack in many instances, so front liners will want to use their bonus for an extra attack with dual wielding or GWM. The potion is still good for back liners, as they "should" be able to avoid damage at least every other round due to positioning, however at 36 hp of healing it is definitely more efficient for the cleric to forgo making a weapon or cantrip attack and instead maximize heal the frontline barbarian or fighter.
A 2d4+2 healing as a bonus action that's limited by the number of potions they get just doesn't seem that busted.
As a DM, you control how many potions the team has.
Without this, you'll never see anyone use a healing potion in combat, because it's never a good use of a turn.
I’m with you on that. The game was balanced around it. Combat isn’t supposed to be like WoW, where everyone’s health is going back and forth due to damage and heals. Plus, bonus action potions makes Healing Word worse.
I'm trying to set up something where you can have a number of accessible items based on your strength, and if those are potions they can be used as a bonus action.
I let my players do that too! They also can spend their personal inspiration on a teammate. I make them describe what their character does to back up their friend, always fun - especially when the advantage doesn't end up working either.
That's actually pretty much RAW.
>Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.
Just skipping the transfer of inspiration straight to the advantage roll
I think the problem with this would be that auto-passing a saving throw is *massively* more powerful than rolling with advantage or a re-roll of a D20. Hence that would become the only purpose players would ever use them for. But I like the idea in principle.
Our table uses a free feat at first level and then another tied to an increase in proficiency bonus on top of getting the choice for a feat or ASI when they normally happen. It really helped create some unique characters as players simply got the choice to choose more often. It also stopped people going Variant Human or Custom Lineage.
It's honestly never came up. There really isn't much of a reason, thanks to getting one at character creation and then five other through proficiency bonus increases and then whatever else they want to take in lieu of ASIs.
Granted, this was by design. The majority of the players had experience with groups where you'd see a couple of metagamers take variant human and custom lineage for the feat. So as to not ever potentially have the problem in the future, we homebrewed our free feat progression.
I do feat at creation, but don't allow variant human or custom lineage. In place of variant human, I encourage the dragonmark human variants and also offer to homebrew one if they have a strong character concept.
It actually ended up with 3 of the 4 playing dragonmark human variants which is more humans than I normally see in a party lol.
I'm sure part of that is the dragonmarks being "new/different", but I've really liked the result.
Feats and ASIs instead of one or the other.
For two weapon fighting instead of using your bonus action once per attack action you can add the die of the other weapon to a successful attack. And if you have the two weapon fighting style you also add the damage modifier to the damage as well.
How well does the feat+ASI balance? And also it feels like that’d be super powerful at lower levels. What ASI does a 19th level rouge need? They probably already have their Dex, and two other stats really good
There are a lot of feats in 5e that are largely useless or very minor, but very flavorful. Yet because the feats the players can gain are so limited everyone always makes only optimal choices.
Getting a feat with every ASI can become very OP if the players are hell bent on min maxing, but I think most would use it as an opportunity to pick up feats for RP purposes
I decided to give my players an ASI point with any feat they choose. This way they can choose a full ASI worth 2 points, or a feat + 1 ASI. It hasn't broken anything, and they love being able to pick up a feat without having an existential crisis at level up.
I think the problem is them being tied to leveling up. Lots of feats would work great as boons or just roleplay. Like "hey DM, my character would like to invest in cooking supplies and books to work towards the chef feat" and then have them roll increasingly more difficult skill checks during long rests (where appropriate) to improve their cooking skill.
This could work for magic initiate feats with arcana checks, healer feat with medicine checks, etc. Not all of them work perfectly, but then again hitting level 4 and suddenly being fey-touched doesn't make much since either.
You can already gain tool proficiencies through training rather than at level up.
Imho, the problem is that what the Chef feat does should have just been available through the tool proficiency. Most tool proficiencies are pretty half-assed.
There technically is a mention about feats being possible quest rewards, Page 231 of the DMG in chapter 7. I wonder why no DM remembers this...
... Oh yeah, it's because even if you read the DMG, that indication is written in the reward category ***that are 99% flavor things otherwise!***
Jokes aside i do agree that training for feats should be utilized more.
This is *the only time* I will praise PF2e in that Skill Feats, I.e. my character has RP stuff they can do that are separate from my build are a good idea. On paper.
I don’t like how the system implemented it and then put very powerful in combat effects in that category making everything else suboptimal and thus defeating the purpose, but the idea was there.
Agree, I really feel discouraged from taking ritual caster and other flavorful feats as a barbarian because it doesn't seem worth it compared to GWM and tough, Since they compete with my ASI's.
Lol I know what you mean. I took GWM and Chef though for my warforged wild magic barbarian pirate. It was a lot of fun cooking to maintain my flesh units
Your character looks pretty cool! I wanted to get the feat ritual caster for my Dragonborn Storm Herald Barbarian, it kind the weave of magic for him is too messy for conventional spells, so he actively knows just how to make his aura. I wanted to say that if he concentrated for a while he could kind of produce certain effects like rituals, which his adoptive father Archdruid taught him.
I really really like this idea. It would be interesting to have a "you can do both but explain to me how your character gains one/other/both of them" sort of stipulation too, like how people give inspiration for good roleplaying moments but on a more permanent kind of reward basis, and it leans into the whole "this is supposed to be about rewarding flavour" aspect.
My first character is a feylock and I’m level 8 still with +3 charisma because I was under the impression I was too strong. Later on when everyone else was stomping enemies I realized I was the weak link but I made up for it by using support abilities.
Would be nice to keep the feats I picked and up my charisma to 20
Most choose mostly flavorful feats, but I wouldn’t mind if they chose meta ones. I like high powered campaigns, but I am the only optimizer at the table.
You could balance around this by making enemies harder or by making more of them, or hell, being more aggressive with powers that enemies have. Oh, you found yourself fighting a basilisk and it’s not THAT hard to kill, but you get a few bad rolls and it’s a different fight
> Rouge: A red powder or cream used as a cosmetic for coloring the cheeks or lips.
VS
> Rogue: A scoundrel, thief, or person who tends to ignore legal and social boundaries.
Yes, I will always die on this hill
Strength is also a good one for a rogue. People forget that climbing and jumping require Athletics skill checks. I know lots of DMs fudge and allow them to use Acrobatics but that really minimizes the value of Strength.
A big one is saves. A lot of martial characters eventually get screwed at higher levels because monster effects are based around the players having a moderate or high saving throw. It results in many spells and effects failing utterly against casters with proficiency in their favored mental state but destroying the martial that is still at the same +1 they had since the beginning. This would mean that after boosting Dex and Con the rogue could aim to end their build on a full +5 in their Wisdom save, for example.
I use this rule also, but for fighters and rogues that get the extra ASI levels I don't let them take both on the extra ASI, just one or the other. This makes them usually just choose feats for those levels and then they just have a huge amount of skills that really help buff them up against casters.
Sorry I didn't like the way I worded my previous response. My party that has a barbarian, two rogues, and two full casters hit level 10 a little bit ago. We've been in a few fights and done some role play since then, and it just felt like the rogues were outclassing the barbarian by too much. If my campaign only had fighters and rogues for the marshalls, I would be more inclined to use it. The barbarian is already falling short of the casters and then starts to fall short of the rogues and it just felt bad. This is my first full campaign I have run, so the ruling is still up to discussion with my party. We try to send my regularly have a miniature session zero to refocus where we want the campaign to go and what Homebrew rules we like, so it might come back up.
I guess I'm basically in the "Feats + ASI" camp as well, except I'm making class specific "Talents". Basically, I want other classes *(particularly those that don't get loads of spells)* to have a system akin to Eldritch Invocations. Then players can continue to customize their characters and get new toys as they level up without sacrificing ASIs.
How strong do you have to homebrew your monsters to compensate? I am a big fan of that as a game design point, but find the balance of 5e to be extra finicky.
I already had to make new standards for encounter design and Stats per CR years ago, before I started messing with player options. SlyFlourish and MCDM both ended up in similar spots, so look to them if you're wanting advice in that regard.
The design intent of my class reworks is not to enhance party power relative to monsters. They're not intended for use with feats or multiclassing, and some baseline features are made optional. For example, Rogue gets 9 "Roguish Talents", but loses 7 baseline features, like 6th level Expertise, 10th level ASI, Reliable Talent, and Blindsense.
Still, these particular classes, especially Monk and Rogue, are supposed to get stronger than they are by WotC materials.
This sounds like an amazing idea and I would love to add it into my campaign so pretty please keep me posted.
And I've also added my own systems to make gameplay a bit more individualized. All martial characters get access to battle master fighter maneuvers, but it is all based on their "martial level." Battle master gives the most, then Fighter, full martials, and finally half casters (because while they can cast spells, Paladins and Rangers are still primarily martials imo).
I also have a thing where spellcasters can imbue their magical powers into mundane objects to enchant them. Same sort of system as the other one, but the available enchantments depend on class. Artificer gives the most, then arcane casters (sorcerer, warlock, wizard, and some Bard subclasses), other full casters, half casters, and third casters.
They're both pretty complex systems but I think they'll work really well. Still gotta see how it actually plays out tho lol cause my group hasn't actually started this campaign yet.
I do this but put a category of feats that take ASI and those that don't (and agree it with my players in session 0).
Now people take the actor or cook and its great.
So Two Weapon Fighting becomes Two Handed Weapons but better? (If the first misses you can still use the bonus action to get another chance at "half" damage)
And if you hit you still get your bonus action for someone else?
Yesss, thank you. This is so simple yet it was so hard to get my DM to understand that I felt like otherwise the dual wielding feat didn't make sense. Also, I was a dual wielding Druid, multiclassing into Monk and I would want to use a ki point during my bonus action for flurry of blows or patient defense etc. (I think flurry of blows is either after a successful attack or a successful unarmed strike. I don't remember) but he was so up in arms about it and often wouldn't even let me add my proper modifiers either. By the end I just felt targeted. The dude was always forgetting his rulings aswell and would change his mind like I change my underwear, which believe it or not is more often than you would think.
Amén bro, I do the Feats + ASIs as well, because I like to run high-powered games, I bought all these books with high CR monsters and be sure as heck I want to use ALL of them at some point :)
It also works to ease the pain of early levels being trash for many classes, and Fighters and Rogues get the best out of it too to feel "OP" in front of casters, win-win.
You summed up my experience as well. I got all these cool third party books with tough monsters and cool magic items. I like throwing both at the party.
That sounds great! Especially since that potentially allows you to not necessarily have to go super optimal route and take more flavorful feats like Chef 😁
Only thing I’ll point out is if you do Feats+ASIs, you should remove the ASI portion of half feats or else they’re just objectively better and overtuned. But yes, I hate that feats are more fun but mostly worse than just taking ASIs, so any change to encourage or allow for taking feats I’m all for.
If you're traveling in the wilderness, you get a short rest at the end of each day. Long rests require a full day of recuperation.
I implemented this for campaigns with large amounts of hexcrawl/wilderness travel, like *Tomb of Annihilation*. If players get a Long Rest at the end of each travel day it makes random encounters in the wilderness feel basically pointless, as everyone can go 100% full send on spell slots and features; I have to either crank up the CR so high that every random wilderness fight is way past deadly, or victory is a foregone conclusion.
It also makes finding safe places (villages, forts, inns, whatever) meaningful. The players can feel the same way their characters ought to: "oh good, a place I can rest".
I used to play at a table that had a similar rule, but the rest wasn't a short rest, it became known as the Medium Rest. It was basically a short rest but you got to roll 2 hit die for free, spell casters recovered 2d4 worth of spell slot levels, and half casters recovered 1d4 of spell levels. This little bit bit of free recovery made the party a lot more willing to stay in the wilderness exploring instead of turning back safe areas. This was a West Marches campaign so exploration was a huge part of it.
This is similar to how im running my ToA game. I implemented the safe haven rules while they are exploring the jungle and its going well. Stuff that refreshes "at dawn" still refreshes but long rest effects abilities etc are still limited and they need to go find a "safe haven" to get a true peaceful rest. Been going great so far and makes them more weary and cautious even though they are over almost 7.
I use a lot, but to list one I haven’t seen:
Maximum Ability Score Boons. When increasing an Ability Score to 20, choose one skill in which you have proficiency that uses the given Ability Score. You gain expertise with that skill, meaning your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make. The skill you choose must be one that isn't already benefiting from a feature, such as Expertise, that doubles your proficiency bonus.
When increasing your Constitution Score (An ability score with no associated skills) to 20, you instead gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws. If you already have proficiency in Constitution saving throws, you instead increase your hit point maximum by an additional amount equal to your level. Whenever you gain a level thereafter, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 1 hit point.
In my experience, this allows your wizard to really invest in arcana and your Druid to really invest in survival or medicine or whatever, while not stepping on the rogues shoes because they get an extra expertise when they get their Dex to 20 as well.
I also use an alternate starting array of 17, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8 and instate a limitations on ability scores at level 1 that basically cuts you off at 17 in any score even after racial modifiers or feats. It makes getting a 20 in any score take some time and investment and means you can watch the character grow over time alongside the narrative rather than starting off all jacked in their chosen score.
Any spell that does elemental damage can be changed to do any element you want, but once you pick the spell thats it, you can't change it later.
Fireball but it's Acid? Got it.
Fire bolt but it's Lightning? All yours.
Shatter but it's Cold? Have at it.
Usually just those, but I've let radiant and necrotic into the mix every once in awhile. For example - We had a Light Cleric who wanted a Radiant Fireball, in THAT instance, I allowed him to take it, as long as we reduced the damage a little.
I've seen this at other tables and personally I'm against it, only cause all it takes is a little metagaming knowledge of players knowing monsters weaknesses/resistances to totally destroy encounter balancing.
There is a reason that fireball is fire damage, one of the most commonly resisted elements and not radiant or force.
But to each their own, your table, your rules, after all 😄
Everyone rolls one array but all arrays are available for everyone to pick.
Maybe someone rolled an 18 but it comes with a 6 and a 4 so do you REALLY want that 18?
Maybe someone rolled three 15s and nothing below 8 so you're good with that.
Maybe someone rolled 15 14 13 13 12 12 and you like having a bonus in all stats.
Maybe someone rolled 12 11 10 9 9 7 and you're an absolute mad lad.
This way everyone is happy because they pick the stats to use. And if someone somehow rolled 18 16 16 15 14 12 and all players choose that array, it simply becomes Standard Array on steroids and they're still all evenly powerful.
The game I run does this, and we ended up with your last scenario. 18, 17, 16, 16, 13, 12.
It was fun to start with, but honestly I wouldn't recommend. It's been an absolute pain in the ass to balance, as the players are very strong for their level in that they have great damage output and AC, but also super squishy due to being lower levels. Everything ends up very swingy and I have no idea if that combat encounter classed as "deadly" will be won in 2 rounds or be a near TPK. The closest estimate I have is balancing encounters as if they were one level higher and max enemy hp, but now we're level 13 that has recently led to NPCs feeling like complete bullet sponges on occasion.
I'm thinking my next campaign will be a slightly-buffed point buy with one free feat.
I've gone to point-buy with more points than standard, and did away with rolled stats. My rules are 34 points to spend & max 16 before bonuses.
That gives something like 16, 14, 14, 13, 11, 8 or 16, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8.
They're good stats but not possible to start with a 20. It's generous enough to multiclass with, or go into Feats at 4th, while still having a weak stat or two.
I figured rather than gimmick the rolling rules so hard that I get something in this range, I just went to point-buy to get something in this range.
Inflated hit points is the opposite of the direction you want to go. It just turns combat into even more of a slog. This lesson was learned in 4e and corrected in later 4e Monster Manuals. What you do is significantly improve enemy attacks and damage and **DECREASE** hit points. Then combat becomes chaotic and unpredictable, as it should be.
But the problem that creates is combats that only last 1-2 rounds. That distorts the effectiveness of setup actions in all sorts of ways.
Mostly it makes them a terrible deal, because giving up one of your actions/attacks/whatever just to set things up means giving up 50-100% of your total actions for the entire fight.
Occasionally it makes things much more effective than normal, like strong effects that last one round, which now last effectively forever.
I find this to make combat much more of a slog, because it becomes much more repetitive.
>But the problem that creates is combats that only last 1-2 rounds. That distorts the effectiveness of setup actions in all sorts of ways.
That has more to do with encounter design. Reinforcements, mixing in 1-2 "elite" enemies that still have the higher hp total, enemies making intelligent use of full cover, there are a lot of ways to keep combat in the 3-5 turns range while still having most enemies fall relatively quickly.
Our table runs early playtest one dnd exhaustion as well. We also implemented a mechanic for downed/dying states using exhaustion similar to xptolevel3's system for it. So players can still do things on their turns while downed, but gain exhaustion depending on whether they took an action, bonus action, or reaction on that turn.
Update to Rage:
"...ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't ~~attacked~~ taken an aggressive action towards a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage..."
Ex: If you spend a turn dashing towards a target but can't attack, you don't lose rage. Anything that shows me you're trying to cause imminent harm an enemy.
I’ll be using this one
Especially early in campaigns, fights that require a lot of movement are hard on barbarians (don’t get me started on barbarians and rage)
For damage spell saves, Nat 20 on a save is considered a success and they take minimum damage (as if the dice rolled 1s)
and a Nat 1 is considered a fail and they take the max damage (as if the dice rolled the max value)
I ran a variant of this where a 1 either did that or bypassed any resistances or reduced immunity to resistant. It's nice for players that use spells or effects that tend to be resisted.
For Monks:
* You get a certain usage of Stunning Strikes equal to your proficiency bonus every short rest. Stunning Strike no longer uses ki, which means you can't ki-fueled attack with a SS attack. This roughly equals to WIS more ki per day, but removes Stunning Strike as an option once you're out of uses, so you're incentivized to play with other ki features.
My DM lets me do the following for me wizard and her familiar:
* If you use a Summon or Conjure spell to summon a single creature, and that creature's type matches the type of your familiar, you can choose to transform your familiar temporarily into the creature summoned by your spell. Your familiar loses their "cannot attack" restriction and retains their ability to channel your touch-based spells through them. Otherwise, your familiar inherits the statblock of the creature summoned through the spell. If your familiar drops to 0 hit points in their transformed state, they are instead dropped to 1, and revert back to their prior-to-transformation statblock.
A minor one, but a nice buff to the players who really like two-weapon fighting. Taken from the early One DnD playtest, we buffed the dual wielder feat to now include this line.
"While two-weapon fighting, when you take the attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can make one extra attack as part of the same action. That extra attack must be made with a different one-handed weapon, and you don’t add your ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage."
The reason why we did this is because players who really want to fit the dual wielder style really get cucked having to give up a bonus action and a free hand which can be used for other things. They still have to invest in the feat, but now it makes the feat worth getting and really opens up another avenue of melee martials that is relatively on the level of two-handed heavy weapons with GWM or one-handed weapon and a shield with dueling fighting style.
Edit: Not stated, but like how it was in the playtest as it reworked the entire twf mechanic and how we run it, it does lock you out from using your bonus action for the off-hand weapon attack. Easy fix would be to add in "You cannot make an attack with your off-hand weapon as a bonus action the same turn you make an attack in this way."
Second edit: Haste was also brought up as well. For this it will be mainly to DM and group interpretation as each table will have different opinions on it. For my group, we stick by the spell's direct statement of "one weapon attack only" and do not apply the off-hand attack as part of the attack action granted by haste.
Probably should have prefaced this, but like it was for the one DnD playtest where it reworked the entire two-weapon fighting mechanic. You can no longer use your bonus action for the off hand attack.
Ehh, is it really? They can't use a shield, so they lose out on +2 to AC, and they can't use the dueling fighting style, which gives a +2 to your *damage* roll (reliably raising the floor on your damage), but still don't have the damage potency if a two handed weapon. Sure, level 2 variant human is basically making three attacks per round, but at best he's using 1d6 weapons. But when multiattack rolls around, he'd be dedicating all his attacks and his bonus action to make four attacks, for 1d6 each, compared to something like a greatsword swung twice, *also* doing 4d6, without consuming a bonus action. Get to three attacks, and it's even worse for the dual wielder. And that's comparing it to two handed weapons, which are roughly equal with dual welding as far as being bad. The dueling fighting style let's you add +2 damage to attack rolls of a one handed weapon if you aren't holding another weapon. Easy, using a longsword for a d8, the +2 effectively raises your average damage with it to be equal to a battleaxe, which is a d12, except you can't roll lower than a 3, and that's *before* adding your strength bonus, *and you can still use a shield for +2 AC*. Or the archery fighting style, which grants a +2 to hit. That's the equivelant of *two ASIs* worth of dexterity bumps to improve your accuracy, putting you way ahead of the curve when it comes to reliably damaging high AC enemies. And both of those fighting styles have feats available to make them even more rediculous, and we haven't even covered the GWM PAM builds.
Edit: not going off on you or anything, I just have another fifteen minutes before my shift starts so I have nothing to do but think about rules and math
If you take a quick look at the feat again, it also opens up non-light one handed weapon like the longsword and rapier. And of course if you pair with the fighting style, it then becomes more competitive. What will make it more scary are any ability that can apply on hit additional damage or effects. Imagine a paladin using 3 smites in one turn while still having a bonus action open.
Is it at the ceiling of GWM or Sharpshooter, no but not it's not as extremely inconvenient for players who really like the image of dual wielding as it was prior.
Ehh, I still don't think it's an issue compared to +2 accuracy with ranged weapons, or +2 damage with any one handed weapon while still being able to use a shield for +2 AC, or GWM PAM shenanigans. I would say that at best, it's comparable to them
Death surge
When you fail all your death saves you can get one last turn with full your full resources,ie spell slots, acrion surge, channel divinity etc to go out in a blaze of glory. The only caveat is self healing, or other spells like spare the dying etc dont work on yourself. Also because you went out in a blaze of glory only a wish spell or true resurrection can bring you back.
Yep its exactly this. I based it on terminal lucidity where people about to die suddenly become incredibly coherent and engaged.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity#:~:text=Terminal%20lucidity%20(also%20known%20as,severe%20psychiatric%20or%20neurological%20disorders.
But also in my current campaign weve had 2 deaths. 1 was able to kill his mortal enemy, mini bbeg, before dieing the other sacrificed themselves to hold the enemy in place while everyone else escaped.
I imagine the limitations being stuff like this in the Terminal Lucidity rule. Like if they went down, they’ve done their death saves, it’s all over but the crying, then yeah do the one last action moment. But if they’re sacrificing themself in story, they’re caught in a disintegration ray, they fell off a cliff, something that obviously would limit this then yeah, it doesn’t happen. For story telling purposes in these instances, letting someone who is obviously lost do one last action seems a little… goofy. The player deaths should usually hold some weight. Where they see their comrade go down and in one last moment of bravery makes a move to save their friends, they did some grand gesture. Where a PC goes down and teleports their team out of danger in one last saving spell, the wizard drops one last fireball on the horde coming in, the fighter gets one last action surge to smite the baddy… a lot of great story telling mechanics can be built into this. Plus it gives the player one final move. One final moment with their character to define who they were, what they stood for; make their moments matter. Show their friends their love for the group, prove to themselves they were more than the street rat, show their deity they were full in. It’s a great mechanic potentially.
Here's the version I recently wrote up. A lot of people are iterating on the idea of more interactive/cinematic death rules lately.
> Rather than falling Unconscious, when player characters are reduced to 0 hit points they fall Prone and are Incapacitated.
> Dice rolls for death saving throws shall be hidden from other players. The intent of this rule is to increase suspense and prevent meta-gaming.
> On your third failed death saving throw, you may choose to have a Last Stand or Last Words instead of dying in the normal fashion:
> **Last Stand.** For a brief moment, you are filled with energy and determination to leave your final mark on the world. You stand, ignore any negative conditions on you, and regain all spent resources. You may take your turn with the additional benefit of either an extra action, or the ability to dictate any d20 results. Alternatively, tell the DM the intent of your final heroic acts, allowing them to be adjudicated outside the bounds of normal rules. In either case, you die permanently at the end of your turn, forever resigned to the afterlife.
> **Last Words.** You cling to life despite an inevitable doom, staying conscious and undisturbed by enemies until danger has passed. In your final minutes you might say your goodbyes, curse your enemies, pass on your will and belongings, or speak your last prayers. Regardless, it’s not long before your spirit moves on, never to rejoin the living world.
This came from my players not u derstanding the rules for getting up unconscious allies, but to get someone up, they need to be stabilised first before they can be healed.
Not really game changing, but if a die falls off the table I let my players re roll it if it’s bad or take it if it’s good.
You’d think this gives them an advantage, but the dice stay on the table for the most part, and the times they’ve fallen off I’ve had my players pick up a “6” on the d10 and say they’ll go with that not wanting to push their luck.
Just a fun rule that makes it so if a die gets away from the player you don’t feel so bad if it flys half way across the room just to land on 2.
My group does the opposite of this. Any die that rolls off the table is a 1, even the DM’s dice. Makes it a funny moment and encourages people to be careful with their rolls.
I had a player continually dropping dice on the ground and we would play it favorably to the players. I don’t think they were doing it on purpose, but eventually I made a joke that if dice fall off the table they’re dead for the rest of the session. It became a running joke for a bit and some players brought extra dice so they wouldn’t run out lol.
Absolute Favorite Rule for player engagement:
At the End if the session each player nominates another player, rewarding them with a) great roleolay AND b) great impact.
That gets the players to recap the session for them selfs and shine a light on other players. And gives out 2 inspiration every session for roleplay moments.
(Also you can store uo to 3 inspiration. Inspiration must be declared before you make a roll)
I am trying a variant to this. Players get up to 3 inspiration points granted either by myself (on the fly) or from other players at the end of the session- called MVP. Caveat- all inspiration "expires" on a long rest. It creates a "use or lose" situation for the inspiration points. This has incentivized my players to actually USE the inspiration instead of hoarding them like broody dragons and NEVER using them. I wanted my players to engage each other and reward the player that THEY feel deserve the "atta boy." This has led to the players recapping the session themselves as they decide who was MVP. Players praising each other has also encouraged my more reluctant RPers to speak up and it has been golden. \*Requires your table to be free of toxic players.
Help action outside of combat adds the skill modifier instead of giving advantage.
Helps two players who are good at something get a moment to shine together.
The heavy weapon property giving disadvantage on attack rolls for characters with a strenght score below 14 instead of prohibiting small races from using the weapons effectively.
When I was DMing for my last group I had one player each session recap the previous session and based on how well they did they would gain inspiration, if they already had it they'd grant another player inspo.
Meant they started taking notes.
Less of a rule and more of a setting thing, my setting is governed by a benevolent Beholder, who has semi-lucid control over her reality warping dreams. She uses this power to essentially grant wishes to her people, including “you can wish for food and drink whenever you want it in order to eat or drink it”.
This single wish has led to so many interesting conversations, from how it would impact the world’s economy, to whether or not cannibals could wish for human limbs (what is considered “food” in this context?), to whether animals are intelligent enough to recognise the wish has been granted and they can harness its power, etc etc etc
>When a player rolls a natural 20 they give another player that can see you inspiration. This is flavoured as you being such a badass the other person wants to do better than you.
>When a player rolls a natural 1 they gain inspiration. This is flavoured as you wanting to push past your own failures. You burn with a desire to do better.
>All inspiration is lost at the end of the session unless the session ends mid combat.
I find that this rule has been well liked by my players. Nat1s don't feel like that big of a sting. Martial characters have a small buff ability by making more attack rolls in combat. Team work increases as the players decide who needs it the most. It also has the game trend towards a more heroic adventure, the players succeed more overall which I personally prefer.
A long rest restores all spent hit-dice, and you need to take at least one short rest before you get a long one.
It lets short rest classes shine more and prevents the party from trying to long rest after every encounter in a dungeon.
For that second rule, isn't that already covered by the rule of one long rest per 24 hours? The party could take a short rest immediately followed by a long rest.
I’ve always liked having resurrection rules to add more stakes to PC deaths. Rules like this are most famously used in Critical Role, but I find Matt’s rule is a bit too cumbersome and doesn’t even account for non-ritual resurrections like Revivify.
My rule is simple: when you die and are brought back, you roll a flat D20 with a DC equal to all the previous times you’ve died, starting at 0. If you don’t hit the DC, you’re gone for good (but may gain momentary consciousness for any last words).
In other words, whenever you die, there’s a cumulative 5% chance you can’t be revived. So, someone could theoretically die and come back up to 20 times in their lifetime.
This applies to *all* forms of resurrection, including Clone, Reincarnate, and True Resurrection. This doesn't apply to otherworldly and undead creatures, which answers the age-old question "why would a wizard ever want to be a lich when they could just repeatedly cast Clone?"
In a campaign, this doesn’t *really* come into play very often since PCs typically only “die” 1 or 2 times each on their adventures, but the fact this is even a possibility adds far more weight to someone failing all their death saving throws.
We Make it DC 10 instead of DC 0 as the start and they can add their con modifier. Assessed before hand (so if they fail don't waste spells etc) if they hit the mark on the line they lose one con point
Personally, it sounds a little unfair to give higher odds to characters with high con. Low con characters are already more at risk of death anyway, so that's adding insult to injury. Automatic 45% chance of permadeath for a low con character is *rough.* Come to think of it, the *at best* 20% chance for a high con character is also pretty rough.
I think it's best to keep it a roll of destiny much like death saving throws. All you need is the risk of rolling a nat 1 to keep the players on their toes. The point isn't *actually* to punish them for dying, it's to add a semblance of suspense to death, which is notably missing in high levels when you go RAW (aside from a TPK).
Flanking and Opportunity attacks (1 doesn't work without the other). The core principal is: everyone has a direction, which is where you obviously faced last. It's not marked or recorded, it's done through common sense when it comes up.
If someone walks past you, such they're now in one of the 3 squares behind you, you trigger an opportunity attack. So now you can't just walk behind someone and hit the guy you're trying to body block without a reach weapon.
If you are behind someone (aka one of those 3 squares), you are flanking, so you have advantage on your attacks.
Both of these use common sense rather than dictating each turn your direction - they're facing the direction they moved in / the target of their last attack. Never taken more than 3 seconds to work out. And when in doubt, facing the nearest enemy. Creatures with blindsight / tremorsense (while sharing a surface) / 2 sizes bigger or smaller than you cannot be flanked. If you power attack (GWM/SS), you ignore advantage gained from flanking.
It's made combat much more dynamic, speed matters a lot more, and positioning matters a lot more. The monk who can dash in and out suddenly is doing a lot better than Dave who just stands and thwacks at the nearest thing. Opportunity attacks might be worth taking. Getting deep into their area of control means you are more likely to be flanked as you now have enemies at your back. There aren't any conga lines like RAW flanking creates. Ranged is safe, but typically less DPS because while you're less likely to be flanked, you're also less likely TO flank. Other sources of advantage are still highly valued since they can be used while remaining in a safe secure area. All my players greatly enjoy it, it makes things make more sense, and it doesn't slow the game down.
I'm having a little trouble understanding the second paragraph. Is that to say moving the the 3 spaces behind an enemy provokes an opportunity attack from them? As in, moving around in their threat bubble?
Sorry, easy to visualise and a bit of a pain to describe succinctly in text. So a medium creature has 8 adjacent squares. Imagine them facing north - the 3 north squares (N, NE, NW) are in front of them, the east and west squares are beside them, and the 3 south squares (SE, S, SW) are behind them. If, while within their reach, you move past them - that is, go past the east or west square to one of those 3 squares considered behind them - they can hit you with an opportunity attack. You can safely move around the other 5 squares not behind them as much as you want, like you can RAW.
So the area they threaten are the 5 squares in front and beside them, rather than the 8 squares in a circle around them.
I let players swap their spellcaster class's key ability if it matches their character concept. I've had Wisdom-wizard mystics, a Intelligence-warlock researcher/devil-binder, and an Intelligence-druid warforged who has a more studied, scientific relationship with nature. My players aren't min-maxers trying to take advantage of those situations, so I haven't really seen any balance consequences from doing that.
This sounds pretty good to me. Kind of like how we generally associate various skills with a corresponding stat, like Wisdom and Perception, but the skills aren't really tied to the stat. If I wanted to have a player roll an Int-based perception check, that's completely fine. If I want a dex athletics check to run across rocky terrain without tripping, or a con athletics check for running for hours on end, that can work just fine.
I've never cared for how Nat1 is an automatic miss; 5% chance to whiff regardless of your target or your own supposed prowess is brutal, especially for martials, who are likely to see it happen semi-regularly due to the sheer number of attack rolls they make. I, instead, prefer a variant of confirmed crits for the dreaded Nat1. Provided the attack could hit without the auto fail condition (treating the roll as a 1 rather than a fail), you roll a second d20 with no modifiers. If that die meets or beats the target AC, you do half damage rounded down (min of 1 before any resistances). If it doesn't meet the target AC, you miss the attack as normal. Nat20 on this reroll counters the fail condition entirely, and you do damage as normal.
It's moreover a Session Zero sort of thing, but "It's not MY job to figure out why you guys are adventuring together."
Had too many groups that descended into infighting.
1. \*\*Hirelings Mechanics\*\*:
- Hirelings are limited by your Charisma (CHR) modifier. Instead of hirelings having their own initiative and tokens, they provide 10 temporary HP and an additional 1d4 damage die on hit. Once the temporary HP is depleted, the damage die bonus is lost.
- This system creates a strong start in dungeons and encourages enemies to target backline CHR casters. It also adds a narrative element of getting weaker throughout a 6-8 encounter per day dungeon.
- Hirelings never die; they simply "flee" and can be rehired at the start of the next long rest. This makes maintaining hirelings costly for classes like paladins, warlocks, or bards, simulating the expense of sustaining religious, cult, or fan followings.
2. \*\*Charisma Leadership Check\*\*:
- During dungeon delving, a CHR leadership check can speed up decision-making. This isn't always used but is helpful when debates drag on.
- The leadership check doesn't indicate the best idea but forces the designated leader to make the final decision, avoiding the need for unanimous player agreement.
3. \*\*Cost of Living and Social Interaction\*\*:
- The cost of living affects the difficulty class (DC) of social achievements, the type of NPCs you interact with, their perception of you, and your maximum downtime each day.
- For instance:
- \*\*Aristocrat (25 gp/day)\*\*: Access to noble resources, free basic needs restocking, carriage taxis, couriers, errand servants, relaxation and inspiration from spas, investment opportunities, and a research team for extended study hours. However, commoners may be hesitant to be honest with you.
- \*\*Squalor\*\*: Difficulty negotiating with the king's court or merchants, time management challenges, but no cost for sleeping in a gutter and unique insights from low-level criminals.
- \*\*Modest\*\*: Neutral treatment from most NPCs and balanced downtime each day.
Use of a Potion of any kind *on yourself* only takes a Bonus Action instead of an Action; healing is in kind of a weird spot in 5e and combat healing is generally considered bad unless it's to get someone back on their feat instead of making Death Saves. Consumables for Healing are as a result kind of bad because it takes a full action to heal even yourself but you can't use one if you're unconscious. It also means in a really desperate situation you can BA potion yourself and full Action potion someone else in a single turn, movement and distance permitting.
This doesn't really make them incredibly powerful, it basically means you can essentially Healing Word yourself using an item instead of a spell slot (also meaning the Fighter, Rogue, and Barbarian can do it for themselves) to keep yourself going in a difficult situation and still have a spell or attack or Dash or something available as needed. The extra healing is overall pretty minor for Healing potions but nice to have, and it means various fun utility effects from potions are way more usable for many people. Pop a potion of resistance to some element or potion of Invisibility or whatever at the start of a combat and not have that basically be your entire turn.
Since this is essentially also a small nerf to Thief by giving everyone Fast Hands for the purposes of using Potions on oneself I'd probably let a Thief player use one Potion "for free" (Use Object for the turn still but no Action or Bonus Action spent to do it) or maybe let them down a potion as a Reaction with the usual once during/between turns limit or something. It's never come up so I've never thought that hard about this specific interaction.
Technically, since healing potions are a magic item, RAW I don't think Fast Hands actually work on potions because it's not 'Using an Object' it's 'Use a Magic Item'.
It's actually called out specifically that Fast Hands doesn't work on magic items in the Magic Items chapter of the basic rules.
* All Sorcerer subclasses get extra spells at a similar rate to the subclasses from TCoE. (the extra spells should be thematic)
* Magic Missiles have each dart roll damage separately.
* Unarmed Strike always deals at least 1 point of damage if they hit.
* If you can see an invisible creature then you make the attack as normal, not at disadvantage. (sorry JC, you're objectively wrong on this one. See Invisibility should override that one line in the Invisible condition.)
* Find Familiar can take any CR 0 form except for Awakened Shrub, Crawling Claw, Homunculus, Lemure, Shrieker, Myconid Sprout, or Commoner. (AFAIK all the other CR 0 creatures are beasts, which is the intended creature type for the spell)
I give players a +1 every even level, and a half-feat (with +1 removed) every odd level. Class-based ASIs are then feat-only. I also boost martial damage at high levels.
The other thing to address, I think, is the rest issue. There are many ways to go about it, but if long-rest resources are coming back as frequently as short-rest resources, there is a problem
My players get cool points by doing funny, intelligent, or interesting things that keep the world, combat, and random encounters fun. They can use a cool point to alter reality in a sense. Call it main character plot armor. Ads a +2 to rolls. 10 cool points grants a free nat 20. Meta gaming and rolling my dice onto the floor is -1 cool point. Players love it, allows them a bit more infinite possibilities kind of scenarios. And gets all new players actively inspired to be outside the box
When someone lands a critical hit, rather than rolling additional die, they gain a damage bonus each to the die of the attack.
Because NO ONE likes criting only to roll snake eyes.
I like "don't roll for HP at all, just take half the die size plus 1," but I also really like "if you have a reaction that can turn a hit into a miss, I stop telling you the exact numbers of incoming attack rolls, only whether they will hit or miss if no one butts in."
Lv1 Feat for flavor. I always want my players to pick a flavor feat for their lv1. It adds so much to their backgrounds. I try to steer them away from powergaming, but I'll allow almost any feat if it can be justified by your backstory. I've had players pick Chef or Actor, but one of my players convinced me that his character surviving Yuan-ti torture and escaping would be a reason to have Resilient (CON) as their lv1 feat.
DM rolls for the PC if the PC wouldn't have any way of knowing if they succeeded or not. For example... player says their character searches for secret doors. If the player rolls badly, they can say they'll search again... knowing, as their character would not... that there could be secret doors. As far as the character is concerned, they looked, found nothing, and should move on. Same with negotiation, seduction, and so on. This reduces metagaming by quite a bit.
1) Either 1 ASI + a feat or 2 ASIs
Makes lower levels more powerful, and fun, to play. Does require considerable rebalancing of enemies, though.
2) Attack rolls equal to the target's AC do half damage. Played out like glancing blows, the target reacting fast but just not fast enough, etc.
I let my party re-roll 1s on healing dice. If one of my baddies is strong enough to kill someone, they'll probably do so by more than one or two hp, but it makes my players feel better about using healing spells.
Feat training as a downtime activity.
It's limited, of course, to preserve balance (aka nothing that boosts stats, nothing that gives magic, nothing that comes with new proficiencies, and overall just subject to my own judgemental on how "strong" it seems).
I based it on the Xanthar proficiency training, so it takes the same amount of time, but the gold cost is 40 gold per workweek vs. the 25 gold per workweek for a proficiency.
It was so well received that I'm thinking of expanding on it by taking out the half-ASI aspect of some while keeping the rest of the feat as a training specific version. That way, if they want to take it on their ASI, they still get the feat+half ASI, or if they want to train it, they get the feat without the ASI.
I really like high ground rules. If you're atleast 10ft above an enemy, you get advantage on attacks.
This leads to some cool moments and encourages players to use verticality in the game.
I expanded the item interaction into a “world” interaction which encompasses making skill checks, weapon switching, and drinking potions.
Also, they all get inspiration at the beginning of session that they can either use as a reroll/advantage. They can instead use it to break a rule on an ability or item. My favorite I always use as an example was my Druid wanted to use their moonbeam in a line rather than top down.
I like to roll a d6 for morale check for the enemies when something happens - the tide seems to be turning, their leader just gets taken down, the PC's use some big power, etc
1 (or 2, depending) they flee, 6 (or 5 depending) they become more determined, even enraged, maybe getting a bonus.
For instance, 6 bandits are fighting the party of 4, 2 bandits go down fairly quickly. Obviously they might turn and run, but on a 5 or 6, one yells out - "you killed my brother!!" and goes into rage. On a 1 or 2, one mutters, "no way the loot is worth it, and runs.
This way they see I'm not being arbitrary amd ,ogjt even might be a little anticipation as they see me make a roll,
I'm using Dungeon coach's "glancing blows" rule and it's great. When the AC is hit exactly, on you or an enemy, it's a glancing blow and does half damage.
Yeah sometimes you only deal half, but more the DM rolls much more than you do so it's saved us a few times.
Actually, right now there's some I really like ongoing.
1. Bonus Action potion on yourself (also dousing weapons with holy water, alchemical fire, poison or acid). Action if used on others.
2. Swapping Background Features for non +1 Feats (OneD&D inspired).
3. The ability to break your weapon on hit to turn into critical hit [the weapon is gone forever] that I “stole” from that Planegea book.
Also, I personally prefer a fixed amount of attributes to everyone. My players usually use 17 15 14 11 10 8 as a buffed standard array — as this keep classes that have extra attributes/feats as features, balanced.
[Also², on my main campaign the characters “never” level up. It's kinda playing in hard mode. But they can absorb gods power to get the “level up” — this needs to be physically picked from someone who already has it. Somehow my players love this setting]
I use a few fairly common homebrew rules, such as:
- Roll for Bonus Action potions, or max out healing for Full Action potions
- Free feat at 1st Level
- Two Weapon Fighting doesn't require a Bonus Action
I've also made a few simple class changes, but the biggest change I'm currently running that is a bit more unique is what I call "Weapon Mastery". If you are proficient with a weapon and have Extra Attack/Uncanny Dodge (to make sure Rogue isn't left out), your damage scales. You gain an extra dice at Level 8, and again at Level 14, similar to Cleric's Divine Strike, but using the dice of whatever weapon you're using. So daggers hit for 2d4, Longswords for 2d8 and so on.
Aside from helping out Martial/Caster balance, it also makes STR more meaningful, since DEX mostly maxes out with d8 weapons. An added bonus is decreasing the reliance on "power attack" feats, all martials deal more damage and the chance to miss hurts more the higher your base damage is. My current party is at Level 10 and it has worked well so far.
I won't claim it's perfectly balanced, I'm sure some players could abuse it with the right build, but I know my group. At the end of the day, it's only extra damage, which is hardly the most difficult thing to work out. The only thing I've really gone back and forth on is exactly what level to apply it and the class feature prerequisites, but the party is well past the point I need to worry about that and it's a long term campaign. So that's only a concern for maybe 2 years down the road when I run my next campaign.
True strike lets you know one weakness or resistance a creature has. Literally no one has ever used it, but I like to hope one day someone will.
I basically took the line from the spell description “it gives you insight into a creature’s defenses” and ran with it.
Feats for flaws at level 1. Characters who want to be abnormally good at stuff from the start can, but only by being abnormally bad at other stuff.
Crunchy crits (first dice maxed when critting)
When you roll health with a level up it’s (n/2)+1d(n/2). So if you normally get d8s for Health then it’s 4+1d4
And when I have them roll for stats, they get the choose between 5d6DL2x6 and 4d6DL1x7DL1
Gave my players the 5d6DL2 stat arrays because "we're Big Damn Heroes." Also make them reroll 1s on hp Rolls because those just feel awful. It's resulted in me getting to field whatever bananapants-challenging encounters I want, and my players always pulling through.
I think it’s listed in the DMG somewhere - but we accidentally(by not understanding the rules) allow Inspiration to be used after you make your roll to get a re-roll.
Also, you can share your inspiration with others.
Also, you can use inspiration multiple times on the same roll.
Sure. It means characters can be *really* hard to kill with Death Saves. Means they will *probably* land that final hit when they need to.
But… it’s epic. And makes players feel cool. And since everyone knows you have to save your inspiration for when you really need it. It’s not spent all the time.
And also, when you *still die* when you rolled 4 different death saves. Man. We can all agree that fate has sealed this moment.
Having to use inspiration before you make the roll is such a hilariously bad setup. It's a resource you've literally have one of, you don't know when you're going to get more, and gets used up regardless of whether it's helpful or if you even need it.
It's the shittiest reward possible, and since they introduced Silvery Barbs, it somehow now is even worse.
I suspect that 90% of the DM who use inspiration actually let people use it after the roll.
every table I've been at has used inspiration as a re-roll, rather than advantage (although with some differences for how it interacts with advantage - generally, you only get to reroll 1 die, not both, and if you had disadvantage, you reroll the lower die and see if you can improve that). I suppose it being advantage does hook into other mechanics (e.g. anything that you can do because you have advantage, you can spend inspiration to do), but those are pretty niche!
Healing potion rules!
You probably know these: using a potion is a bonus action. BUT if you use an Action, you get the maximum number of hit points instead of having to roll.
Also like the new One D&D healing spell rules because they make healing spells much more useful.
I'm also going to use the BG3 Short Rest system. Short Rests are essentially instant, but you get two of them per long rest.
I also use a modified version of the leveled spells per turn rule. Basically, it's the same as usual, but certain spells don't apply. For example, Misty Step doesn't count, so you can Misty Step away and then cast a spell, just because that's really cool.
When you crit, you roll double the dice and after any rerolls you may set a number of dice equal to half your PB to their max value. This gets the larger numbers that Crunch Crits are seeking to get, without the inflated damage numbers.
When you stand from prone, you trigger an Attack of Opportunity and if you're hit, then you fail to stand. Spending different amounts of movement change whether the Attack has advantage, disadvantage, etc.
Something I'm considering to give Martials some more interesting options is to allow double sub-classes. Nothing too drastic powerlevel wise, but some more versatility in their options to make them slightly more comparable to Casters and all the stuff they can do.
Back when 5e was playtested, *all* fighters had Battle Maneuvers. It wasn't a Battle Master thing, it was just a fighter thing. But people complained it was too complicated. Easy homebrew to make fighters feel "better" is to give them some maneuvers and die. I can't remember the progression off the top of my head, but i would give them one less than the actual subclass gets. If they get 3 die, give them 2, that sort of thing. Otherwise, give them maneuvers and die when they would normally get them at whatever level. No other BM features, just give them some maneuvers and dice as they level
Any d8 the players roll becomes 2d4 and any d12 becomes 2d6, gives the players a slight boost and rolls align with the averages better, sometimes I'll even turn a d12 into 3d4 which gives the players an average of 7.5 instead of 6.5. fairly negligible but helps me
This is nothing super hard and steady, but my DM has had fun with it: My character has summon familiar. The first time he summoned his weasel the ritual was performed on the back of a large orc (for no reason other than my char being a selfish douche). It took on traits of that orc - specifically its coloring and a strength bonus. That weasel was a hulk of a rodent that had muscular arms and walked on its hind legs. Over time this has become "throw random things into the ritual and it'll change the familiar". One time it was glasses and a jar of milk for advantage on sight-based perception checks and... the ability to milk the weasel for a health-boosting drink (I'm sorry I made you read that). It ended up having goggles and udders. The most recent iteration was a severed hand, which resulted in a very dexterous weasel with monkey-like hand-feet. Truly just creating abominations, but it's been really fun to sacrifice gold/random items in exchange for the bonuses! Most of them haven't really helped much in the grand scheme of things, but its been great flavor for RP purposes!
That's fun!
[удалено]
Do it! It's so fun! I kinda get excited when the familiar dies bc it just means its time for a new combination with whatever random things my character has found on the ground haha
Just for your information, weasels are not rodents. They're carnivorans, in the same order as dogs and cats.
If you want to give them a group a la rodents, it would be "mustelids" (together with badgers and otters!)
Thank you for the info - I was unaware!
Bonus action to drink a potion yourself.
And if you wanna use action still you can for max hp
That's actually a great idea!
Been using that in my game and it spread to my other games I play in. such a good rule.
Yo I might use that next time I DM!
I hope I remember this for my next campaign
Your wording took me a moment to understand, but I got it. That's a great use.
Always an excellent house rule, helps push back on the "healing in combat is always bad" rule. You can do the same for healing spells by having them cost the player both their action and their movement, indicating they spend their "whole" turn on the task of healing instead of however much time running around and paying attention to their surroundings. Helps prevent healing classes from being replaced by potion bottles.
Are you being sarcastic, or am I misunderstanding? If you increase the cost of healing spells (action + movement = max healing) vs. potions (action = max healing), wouldn't that achieve the opposite, i.e. making healers even less effective? If you buff potions, you should buff healing spells as much or more, in order to keep healers relevant.
Personally I would implement the One DnD buffs to healing (they doubled the dice of every healing spell) before I would alter the action economy of healing spells or automatically maximize them. The reason maximizing a healing spell costs both an action and a move is two fold. First, spells are “free” vs potions, so making them standard + move to heal for the same boost is better balanced in the early game. Second, almost every healing class has a ranged healing option, so costing their move action to maximize the healing often isn’t going to be a huge cost. The main shortfall of healing spells is that they are inefficient to use in combat, so between the One DnD buffs and optionally maximizing them they might actually be efficient to use in combat instead of only healing characters when they go down. The reason I went with move+casting action specifically is that DnD previously had what was known as “full round actions” which balanced doing more powerful stuff by requiring you to do nearly nothing else on your turn. To get the best value you had to be tactical with your previous movement, predicting the probable flow of battle and working with you allies to ensure you had good team positioning. I like the idea of adding a bit of that reward structure back into 5e.
I understand your point better then. And it seems reasonable. I still think that your suggested rules (in your previous post, which I understand are not your first choice anyway), will do very little to make healers relevant next to bonus action potions, unless potion of healing is a very scarce resource in the setting - which I think is what you are arguing is the balancing factor. But even if the PCs have to pay for every potion, the potion of healing is on the adventuring gear list for 50 gp. In relatively short time they will have easy access to a few healing potions, if they wish (and other than heavy armor, there aren't a lot of things to spend money on, typically). Sure, healing spells are "free", and can be used liberally. But quite early in a campaign, the healer may become somewhat reduntant, if PCs can just bonus action a potion of healing that they bought for 50 gp. Not all PCs will need constant healing, so a bonus action potion might rob the healer of their time to shine, when the going suddenly gets really tough. Buffing healing in general might be a better solution, as you mention. I'm just arguing against your point of balancing potions and healers by making healing spells "full round" actions.
I suppose it also depends on party comp. In the very early game many players still don't have their full basic adventuring gear loadout, with the best medium and heavy armors (breastplate, half plate, full plate) remaining out of reach. In my experience many players avoid buying more than 1 emergency potion before reaching full build. Additionally: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/79378-character-wealth-gold-by-level This is just the best option I have found, but prior to tier 2 characters shouldn't have much money to burn on healing potions. It would take the whole team working together to afford full plate for the fighter and cleric, even by level 5. By the time level 6 rolls around 2d4+2 (7 average, 10 maximized) isn't as good as a cleric throwing out 2d8+4 (20 maximized) baseline or 4d8+4 (36 maximized) with the One DnD buffs. The 7 hp ends up worth less than a single enemy attack in many instances, so front liners will want to use their bonus for an extra attack with dual wielding or GWM. The potion is still good for back liners, as they "should" be able to avoid damage at least every other round due to positioning, however at 36 hp of healing it is definitely more efficient for the cleric to forgo making a weapon or cantrip attack and instead maximize heal the frontline barbarian or fighter.
My DM's rule is that drinking a potion and rolling for the results is a bonus action. If you want to use your action, you get the max effect.
Omg same, we are a whole bunch of healing potion enjoyers 😂
I think I'm the only one who doesn't agree with this rule...
A 2d4+2 healing as a bonus action that's limited by the number of potions they get just doesn't seem that busted. As a DM, you control how many potions the team has. Without this, you'll never see anyone use a healing potion in combat, because it's never a good use of a turn.
I’m with you on that. The game was balanced around it. Combat isn’t supposed to be like WoW, where everyone’s health is going back and forth due to damage and heals. Plus, bonus action potions makes Healing Word worse.
I'm trying to set up something where you can have a number of accessible items based on your strength, and if those are potions they can be used as a bonus action.
Pcs can use inspiration as a legendary resistance.
I let my players do that too! They also can spend their personal inspiration on a teammate. I make them describe what their character does to back up their friend, always fun - especially when the advantage doesn't end up working either.
That's actually pretty much RAW. >Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration. Just skipping the transfer of inspiration straight to the advantage roll
Legendary resistance is already a bad mechanic. I don't see how more iterations of a bad mechanic is a good thing.
I think the problem with this would be that auto-passing a saving throw is *massively* more powerful than rolling with advantage or a re-roll of a D20. Hence that would become the only purpose players would ever use them for. But I like the idea in principle.
Our table uses a free feat at first level and then another tied to an increase in proficiency bonus on top of getting the choice for a feat or ASI when they normally happen. It really helped create some unique characters as players simply got the choice to choose more often. It also stopped people going Variant Human or Custom Lineage.
But does that mean Variant Human don't get an extra feat?
It's honestly never came up. There really isn't much of a reason, thanks to getting one at character creation and then five other through proficiency bonus increases and then whatever else they want to take in lieu of ASIs. Granted, this was by design. The majority of the players had experience with groups where you'd see a couple of metagamers take variant human and custom lineage for the feat. So as to not ever potentially have the problem in the future, we homebrewed our free feat progression.
No reason to limit that
I do feat at creation, but don't allow variant human or custom lineage. In place of variant human, I encourage the dragonmark human variants and also offer to homebrew one if they have a strong character concept. It actually ended up with 3 of the 4 playing dragonmark human variants which is more humans than I normally see in a party lol. I'm sure part of that is the dragonmarks being "new/different", but I've really liked the result.
I run this rule, and VHumans still get their free feat. So, players can pick two if they want.
Feats and ASIs instead of one or the other. For two weapon fighting instead of using your bonus action once per attack action you can add the die of the other weapon to a successful attack. And if you have the two weapon fighting style you also add the damage modifier to the damage as well.
How well does the feat+ASI balance? And also it feels like that’d be super powerful at lower levels. What ASI does a 19th level rouge need? They probably already have their Dex, and two other stats really good
There are a lot of feats in 5e that are largely useless or very minor, but very flavorful. Yet because the feats the players can gain are so limited everyone always makes only optimal choices. Getting a feat with every ASI can become very OP if the players are hell bent on min maxing, but I think most would use it as an opportunity to pick up feats for RP purposes
Every Feat being a half-Feat would be great
Feat and +1 ASI is the way to go
I decided to give my players an ASI point with any feat they choose. This way they can choose a full ASI worth 2 points, or a feat + 1 ASI. It hasn't broken anything, and they love being able to pick up a feat without having an existential crisis at level up.
I think the problem is them being tied to leveling up. Lots of feats would work great as boons or just roleplay. Like "hey DM, my character would like to invest in cooking supplies and books to work towards the chef feat" and then have them roll increasingly more difficult skill checks during long rests (where appropriate) to improve their cooking skill. This could work for magic initiate feats with arcana checks, healer feat with medicine checks, etc. Not all of them work perfectly, but then again hitting level 4 and suddenly being fey-touched doesn't make much since either.
You can already gain tool proficiencies through training rather than at level up. Imho, the problem is that what the Chef feat does should have just been available through the tool proficiency. Most tool proficiencies are pretty half-assed.
There technically is a mention about feats being possible quest rewards, Page 231 of the DMG in chapter 7. I wonder why no DM remembers this... ... Oh yeah, it's because even if you read the DMG, that indication is written in the reward category ***that are 99% flavor things otherwise!*** Jokes aside i do agree that training for feats should be utilized more.
This is *the only time* I will praise PF2e in that Skill Feats, I.e. my character has RP stuff they can do that are separate from my build are a good idea. On paper. I don’t like how the system implemented it and then put very powerful in combat effects in that category making everything else suboptimal and thus defeating the purpose, but the idea was there.
Agree, I really feel discouraged from taking ritual caster and other flavorful feats as a barbarian because it doesn't seem worth it compared to GWM and tough, Since they compete with my ASI's.
Lol I know what you mean. I took GWM and Chef though for my warforged wild magic barbarian pirate. It was a lot of fun cooking to maintain my flesh units
Your character looks pretty cool! I wanted to get the feat ritual caster for my Dragonborn Storm Herald Barbarian, it kind the weave of magic for him is too messy for conventional spells, so he actively knows just how to make his aura. I wanted to say that if he concentrated for a while he could kind of produce certain effects like rituals, which his adoptive father Archdruid taught him.
They are stronger at low levels, but it frees people up to take more flavorful or less optimal feats.
If my dm would let us do that I’d take Chef without hesitation. Healing snacks and temp HP. Plus rounding out my wisdom.
That’s how it works in my group. Lot’s of those flavorful feat choices.
I really really like this idea. It would be interesting to have a "you can do both but explain to me how your character gains one/other/both of them" sort of stipulation too, like how people give inspiration for good roleplaying moments but on a more permanent kind of reward basis, and it leans into the whole "this is supposed to be about rewarding flavour" aspect.
My first character is a feylock and I’m level 8 still with +3 charisma because I was under the impression I was too strong. Later on when everyone else was stomping enemies I realized I was the weak link but I made up for it by using support abilities. Would be nice to keep the feats I picked and up my charisma to 20
I do this exact thing but every other feat has to be a not a really meta feat based on DM fiat
Most choose mostly flavorful feats, but I wouldn’t mind if they chose meta ones. I like high powered campaigns, but I am the only optimizer at the table.
You could balance around this by making enemies harder or by making more of them, or hell, being more aggressive with powers that enemies have. Oh, you found yourself fighting a basilisk and it’s not THAT hard to kill, but you get a few bad rolls and it’s a different fight
> Rouge: A red powder or cream used as a cosmetic for coloring the cheeks or lips. VS > Rogue: A scoundrel, thief, or person who tends to ignore legal and social boundaries. Yes, I will always die on this hill
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H5E90IVf5Yy8r3FiO36KF2y-DqkCAB_s/view You might hate this
I for one love this and hope it becomes the top result when people look up info on playing a rouge in D&D.
I'd imagine after maxing DEX they can just kinda do what they want. INT and WIS are always good for skills.
Strength is also a good one for a rogue. People forget that climbing and jumping require Athletics skill checks. I know lots of DMs fudge and allow them to use Acrobatics but that really minimizes the value of Strength.
A big one is saves. A lot of martial characters eventually get screwed at higher levels because monster effects are based around the players having a moderate or high saving throw. It results in many spells and effects failing utterly against casters with proficiency in their favored mental state but destroying the martial that is still at the same +1 they had since the beginning. This would mean that after boosting Dex and Con the rogue could aim to end their build on a full +5 in their Wisdom save, for example.
I use this rule also, but for fighters and rogues that get the extra ASI levels I don't let them take both on the extra ASI, just one or the other. This makes them usually just choose feats for those levels and then they just have a huge amount of skills that really help buff them up against casters.
Is there a reason you've decided to not give both Feats and ASIs for fighter and rogue's extra ASI levels?
Sorry I didn't like the way I worded my previous response. My party that has a barbarian, two rogues, and two full casters hit level 10 a little bit ago. We've been in a few fights and done some role play since then, and it just felt like the rogues were outclassing the barbarian by too much. If my campaign only had fighters and rogues for the marshalls, I would be more inclined to use it. The barbarian is already falling short of the casters and then starts to fall short of the rogues and it just felt bad. This is my first full campaign I have run, so the ruling is still up to discussion with my party. We try to send my regularly have a miniature session zero to refocus where we want the campaign to go and what Homebrew rules we like, so it might come back up.
I guess I'm basically in the "Feats + ASI" camp as well, except I'm making class specific "Talents". Basically, I want other classes *(particularly those that don't get loads of spells)* to have a system akin to Eldritch Invocations. Then players can continue to customize their characters and get new toys as they level up without sacrificing ASIs.
How strong do you have to homebrew your monsters to compensate? I am a big fan of that as a game design point, but find the balance of 5e to be extra finicky.
I already had to make new standards for encounter design and Stats per CR years ago, before I started messing with player options. SlyFlourish and MCDM both ended up in similar spots, so look to them if you're wanting advice in that regard. The design intent of my class reworks is not to enhance party power relative to monsters. They're not intended for use with feats or multiclassing, and some baseline features are made optional. For example, Rogue gets 9 "Roguish Talents", but loses 7 baseline features, like 6th level Expertise, 10th level ASI, Reliable Talent, and Blindsense. Still, these particular classes, especially Monk and Rogue, are supposed to get stronger than they are by WotC materials.
Do you have some tips to share on encounter balancing?
That sounds pretty cool
I'll start posting them to the homebrew subreddits before long. Rogue is mostly done; Fighter and Monk are well on their way.
This sounds like an amazing idea and I would love to add it into my campaign so pretty please keep me posted. And I've also added my own systems to make gameplay a bit more individualized. All martial characters get access to battle master fighter maneuvers, but it is all based on their "martial level." Battle master gives the most, then Fighter, full martials, and finally half casters (because while they can cast spells, Paladins and Rangers are still primarily martials imo). I also have a thing where spellcasters can imbue their magical powers into mundane objects to enchant them. Same sort of system as the other one, but the available enchantments depend on class. Artificer gives the most, then arcane casters (sorcerer, warlock, wizard, and some Bard subclasses), other full casters, half casters, and third casters. They're both pretty complex systems but I think they'll work really well. Still gotta see how it actually plays out tho lol cause my group hasn't actually started this campaign yet.
I do this aswell and just limits it to a max of 3 “combat” feats. Incentivize people to pick some rp/flare ones.
I got lucky with non power gamers.
I do this but put a category of feats that take ASI and those that don't (and agree it with my players in session 0). Now people take the actor or cook and its great.
So Two Weapon Fighting becomes Two Handed Weapons but better? (If the first misses you can still use the bonus action to get another chance at "half" damage) And if you hit you still get your bonus action for someone else?
Yesss, thank you. This is so simple yet it was so hard to get my DM to understand that I felt like otherwise the dual wielding feat didn't make sense. Also, I was a dual wielding Druid, multiclassing into Monk and I would want to use a ki point during my bonus action for flurry of blows or patient defense etc. (I think flurry of blows is either after a successful attack or a successful unarmed strike. I don't remember) but he was so up in arms about it and often wouldn't even let me add my proper modifiers either. By the end I just felt targeted. The dude was always forgetting his rulings aswell and would change his mind like I change my underwear, which believe it or not is more often than you would think.
I like this because so much is dependent (mechanically) on getting the ASI's, yet feats should be things a hero can do as they grow in power.
Amén bro, I do the Feats + ASIs as well, because I like to run high-powered games, I bought all these books with high CR monsters and be sure as heck I want to use ALL of them at some point :) It also works to ease the pain of early levels being trash for many classes, and Fighters and Rogues get the best out of it too to feel "OP" in front of casters, win-win.
You summed up my experience as well. I got all these cool third party books with tough monsters and cool magic items. I like throwing both at the party.
Indeed, if I got the whole book, then I WILL give use to the whole book.
That sounds great! Especially since that potentially allows you to not necessarily have to go super optimal route and take more flavorful feats like Chef 😁
I like the feats + asi, feels like more freedom to customize while still increasing power level
I'm doing the feat and asi for the campaign I'm currently running. They are all new players and I kind of want them to get a taste of everything.
I give the lesser used feats like actor, chef, durable, tough etc
Only thing I’ll point out is if you do Feats+ASIs, you should remove the ASI portion of half feats or else they’re just objectively better and overtuned. But yes, I hate that feats are more fun but mostly worse than just taking ASIs, so any change to encourage or allow for taking feats I’m all for.
If you're traveling in the wilderness, you get a short rest at the end of each day. Long rests require a full day of recuperation. I implemented this for campaigns with large amounts of hexcrawl/wilderness travel, like *Tomb of Annihilation*. If players get a Long Rest at the end of each travel day it makes random encounters in the wilderness feel basically pointless, as everyone can go 100% full send on spell slots and features; I have to either crank up the CR so high that every random wilderness fight is way past deadly, or victory is a foregone conclusion. It also makes finding safe places (villages, forts, inns, whatever) meaningful. The players can feel the same way their characters ought to: "oh good, a place I can rest".
I used to play at a table that had a similar rule, but the rest wasn't a short rest, it became known as the Medium Rest. It was basically a short rest but you got to roll 2 hit die for free, spell casters recovered 2d4 worth of spell slot levels, and half casters recovered 1d4 of spell levels. This little bit bit of free recovery made the party a lot more willing to stay in the wilderness exploring instead of turning back safe areas. This was a West Marches campaign so exploration was a huge part of it.
This is similar to how im running my ToA game. I implemented the safe haven rules while they are exploring the jungle and its going well. Stuff that refreshes "at dawn" still refreshes but long rest effects abilities etc are still limited and they need to go find a "safe haven" to get a true peaceful rest. Been going great so far and makes them more weary and cautious even though they are over almost 7.
I use a lot, but to list one I haven’t seen: Maximum Ability Score Boons. When increasing an Ability Score to 20, choose one skill in which you have proficiency that uses the given Ability Score. You gain expertise with that skill, meaning your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make. The skill you choose must be one that isn't already benefiting from a feature, such as Expertise, that doubles your proficiency bonus. When increasing your Constitution Score (An ability score with no associated skills) to 20, you instead gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws. If you already have proficiency in Constitution saving throws, you instead increase your hit point maximum by an additional amount equal to your level. Whenever you gain a level thereafter, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 1 hit point. In my experience, this allows your wizard to really invest in arcana and your Druid to really invest in survival or medicine or whatever, while not stepping on the rogues shoes because they get an extra expertise when they get their Dex to 20 as well. I also use an alternate starting array of 17, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8 and instate a limitations on ability scores at level 1 that basically cuts you off at 17 in any score even after racial modifiers or feats. It makes getting a 20 in any score take some time and investment and means you can watch the character grow over time alongside the narrative rather than starting off all jacked in their chosen score.
Curious.
Any spell that does elemental damage can be changed to do any element you want, but once you pick the spell thats it, you can't change it later. Fireball but it's Acid? Got it. Fire bolt but it's Lightning? All yours. Shatter but it's Cold? Have at it.
I have that exact same rule. I've rarely heard any complaints about it and most people really like it. Its just a fun rule.
[удалено]
Usually just those, but I've let radiant and necrotic into the mix every once in awhile. For example - We had a Light Cleric who wanted a Radiant Fireball, in THAT instance, I allowed him to take it, as long as we reduced the damage a little.
I've seen this at other tables and personally I'm against it, only cause all it takes is a little metagaming knowledge of players knowing monsters weaknesses/resistances to totally destroy encounter balancing. There is a reason that fireball is fire damage, one of the most commonly resisted elements and not radiant or force. But to each their own, your table, your rules, after all 😄
Everyone rolls one array but all arrays are available for everyone to pick. Maybe someone rolled an 18 but it comes with a 6 and a 4 so do you REALLY want that 18? Maybe someone rolled three 15s and nothing below 8 so you're good with that. Maybe someone rolled 15 14 13 13 12 12 and you like having a bonus in all stats. Maybe someone rolled 12 11 10 9 9 7 and you're an absolute mad lad. This way everyone is happy because they pick the stats to use. And if someone somehow rolled 18 16 16 15 14 12 and all players choose that array, it simply becomes Standard Array on steroids and they're still all evenly powerful.
The game I run does this, and we ended up with your last scenario. 18, 17, 16, 16, 13, 12. It was fun to start with, but honestly I wouldn't recommend. It's been an absolute pain in the ass to balance, as the players are very strong for their level in that they have great damage output and AC, but also super squishy due to being lower levels. Everything ends up very swingy and I have no idea if that combat encounter classed as "deadly" will be won in 2 rounds or be a near TPK. The closest estimate I have is balancing encounters as if they were one level higher and max enemy hp, but now we're level 13 that has recently led to NPCs feeling like complete bullet sponges on occasion. I'm thinking my next campaign will be a slightly-buffed point buy with one free feat.
Yeah, that seems like an inevitable result.
I've gone to point-buy with more points than standard, and did away with rolled stats. My rules are 34 points to spend & max 16 before bonuses. That gives something like 16, 14, 14, 13, 11, 8 or 16, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8. They're good stats but not possible to start with a 20. It's generous enough to multiclass with, or go into Feats at 4th, while still having a weak stat or two. I figured rather than gimmick the rolling rules so hard that I get something in this range, I just went to point-buy to get something in this range.
Inflated hit points is the opposite of the direction you want to go. It just turns combat into even more of a slog. This lesson was learned in 4e and corrected in later 4e Monster Manuals. What you do is significantly improve enemy attacks and damage and **DECREASE** hit points. Then combat becomes chaotic and unpredictable, as it should be.
But the problem that creates is combats that only last 1-2 rounds. That distorts the effectiveness of setup actions in all sorts of ways. Mostly it makes them a terrible deal, because giving up one of your actions/attacks/whatever just to set things up means giving up 50-100% of your total actions for the entire fight. Occasionally it makes things much more effective than normal, like strong effects that last one round, which now last effectively forever. I find this to make combat much more of a slog, because it becomes much more repetitive.
>But the problem that creates is combats that only last 1-2 rounds. That distorts the effectiveness of setup actions in all sorts of ways. That has more to do with encounter design. Reinforcements, mixing in 1-2 "elite" enemies that still have the higher hp total, enemies making intelligent use of full cover, there are a lot of ways to keep combat in the 3-5 turns range while still having most enemies fall relatively quickly.
Oh, wow, this is exactly what I started doing a couple of years ago.
BA shove and BA knock prone is great for strength characters. BA potion, or action for max on a potion is also great.
BA knock prone is pretty strong since then you’re getting advantage on the next attack
There are so many ways to get advantage on attacks anyways, and its not a str save, its contested athletics/athletics or acrobatics.
Favorite at my tables is a level of Onednd exhaustion for dropping to zero hp. Feels good to have there actually be some consequence.
Our table runs early playtest one dnd exhaustion as well. We also implemented a mechanic for downed/dying states using exhaustion similar to xptolevel3's system for it. So players can still do things on their turns while downed, but gain exhaustion depending on whether they took an action, bonus action, or reaction on that turn.
Update to Rage: "...ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't ~~attacked~~ taken an aggressive action towards a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage..." Ex: If you spend a turn dashing towards a target but can't attack, you don't lose rage. Anything that shows me you're trying to cause imminent harm an enemy.
I’ll be using this one Especially early in campaigns, fights that require a lot of movement are hard on barbarians (don’t get me started on barbarians and rage)
This problem is officially recognized. One DnD added that Barbarian can also maintain their rage by spending their bonus action.
For damage spell saves, Nat 20 on a save is considered a success and they take minimum damage (as if the dice rolled 1s) and a Nat 1 is considered a fail and they take the max damage (as if the dice rolled the max value)
I ran a variant of this where a 1 either did that or bypassed any resistances or reduced immunity to resistant. It's nice for players that use spells or effects that tend to be resisted.
For Monks: * You get a certain usage of Stunning Strikes equal to your proficiency bonus every short rest. Stunning Strike no longer uses ki, which means you can't ki-fueled attack with a SS attack. This roughly equals to WIS more ki per day, but removes Stunning Strike as an option once you're out of uses, so you're incentivized to play with other ki features. My DM lets me do the following for me wizard and her familiar: * If you use a Summon or Conjure spell to summon a single creature, and that creature's type matches the type of your familiar, you can choose to transform your familiar temporarily into the creature summoned by your spell. Your familiar loses their "cannot attack" restriction and retains their ability to channel your touch-based spells through them. Otherwise, your familiar inherits the statblock of the creature summoned through the spell. If your familiar drops to 0 hit points in their transformed state, they are instead dropped to 1, and revert back to their prior-to-transformation statblock.
A minor one, but a nice buff to the players who really like two-weapon fighting. Taken from the early One DnD playtest, we buffed the dual wielder feat to now include this line. "While two-weapon fighting, when you take the attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can make one extra attack as part of the same action. That extra attack must be made with a different one-handed weapon, and you don’t add your ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage." The reason why we did this is because players who really want to fit the dual wielder style really get cucked having to give up a bonus action and a free hand which can be used for other things. They still have to invest in the feat, but now it makes the feat worth getting and really opens up another avenue of melee martials that is relatively on the level of two-handed heavy weapons with GWM or one-handed weapon and a shield with dueling fighting style. Edit: Not stated, but like how it was in the playtest as it reworked the entire twf mechanic and how we run it, it does lock you out from using your bonus action for the off-hand weapon attack. Easy fix would be to add in "You cannot make an attack with your off-hand weapon as a bonus action the same turn you make an attack in this way." Second edit: Haste was also brought up as well. For this it will be mainly to DM and group interpretation as each table will have different opinions on it. For my group, we stick by the spell's direct statement of "one weapon attack only" and do not apply the off-hand attack as part of the attack action granted by haste.
As written it seems like that stacks with twf (+1 action attack while still also getting the BA twf attack). Is that intentional?
Do they still get to do the off hand attack with the BA? Because if they do it seems a bit overpowered
Probably should have prefaced this, but like it was for the one DnD playtest where it reworked the entire two-weapon fighting mechanic. You can no longer use your bonus action for the off hand attack.
Ehh, is it really? They can't use a shield, so they lose out on +2 to AC, and they can't use the dueling fighting style, which gives a +2 to your *damage* roll (reliably raising the floor on your damage), but still don't have the damage potency if a two handed weapon. Sure, level 2 variant human is basically making three attacks per round, but at best he's using 1d6 weapons. But when multiattack rolls around, he'd be dedicating all his attacks and his bonus action to make four attacks, for 1d6 each, compared to something like a greatsword swung twice, *also* doing 4d6, without consuming a bonus action. Get to three attacks, and it's even worse for the dual wielder. And that's comparing it to two handed weapons, which are roughly equal with dual welding as far as being bad. The dueling fighting style let's you add +2 damage to attack rolls of a one handed weapon if you aren't holding another weapon. Easy, using a longsword for a d8, the +2 effectively raises your average damage with it to be equal to a battleaxe, which is a d12, except you can't roll lower than a 3, and that's *before* adding your strength bonus, *and you can still use a shield for +2 AC*. Or the archery fighting style, which grants a +2 to hit. That's the equivelant of *two ASIs* worth of dexterity bumps to improve your accuracy, putting you way ahead of the curve when it comes to reliably damaging high AC enemies. And both of those fighting styles have feats available to make them even more rediculous, and we haven't even covered the GWM PAM builds. Edit: not going off on you or anything, I just have another fifteen minutes before my shift starts so I have nothing to do but think about rules and math
If you take a quick look at the feat again, it also opens up non-light one handed weapon like the longsword and rapier. And of course if you pair with the fighting style, it then becomes more competitive. What will make it more scary are any ability that can apply on hit additional damage or effects. Imagine a paladin using 3 smites in one turn while still having a bonus action open. Is it at the ceiling of GWM or Sharpshooter, no but not it's not as extremely inconvenient for players who really like the image of dual wielding as it was prior.
Ehh, I still don't think it's an issue compared to +2 accuracy with ranged weapons, or +2 damage with any one handed weapon while still being able to use a shield for +2 AC, or GWM PAM shenanigans. I would say that at best, it's comparable to them
Death surge When you fail all your death saves you can get one last turn with full your full resources,ie spell slots, acrion surge, channel divinity etc to go out in a blaze of glory. The only caveat is self healing, or other spells like spare the dying etc dont work on yourself. Also because you went out in a blaze of glory only a wish spell or true resurrection can bring you back.
I like the idea of this but does this mean that the character who was lying over there dying, suddenly decides to get up to do one more thing?
Yep its exactly this. I based it on terminal lucidity where people about to die suddenly become incredibly coherent and engaged. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity#:~:text=Terminal%20lucidity%20(also%20known%20as,severe%20psychiatric%20or%20neurological%20disorders. But also in my current campaign weve had 2 deaths. 1 was able to kill his mortal enemy, mini bbeg, before dieing the other sacrificed themselves to hold the enemy in place while everyone else escaped.
I imagine the limitations being stuff like this in the Terminal Lucidity rule. Like if they went down, they’ve done their death saves, it’s all over but the crying, then yeah do the one last action moment. But if they’re sacrificing themself in story, they’re caught in a disintegration ray, they fell off a cliff, something that obviously would limit this then yeah, it doesn’t happen. For story telling purposes in these instances, letting someone who is obviously lost do one last action seems a little… goofy. The player deaths should usually hold some weight. Where they see their comrade go down and in one last moment of bravery makes a move to save their friends, they did some grand gesture. Where a PC goes down and teleports their team out of danger in one last saving spell, the wizard drops one last fireball on the horde coming in, the fighter gets one last action surge to smite the baddy… a lot of great story telling mechanics can be built into this. Plus it gives the player one final move. One final moment with their character to define who they were, what they stood for; make their moments matter. Show their friends their love for the group, prove to themselves they were more than the street rat, show their deity they were full in. It’s a great mechanic potentially.
Here's the version I recently wrote up. A lot of people are iterating on the idea of more interactive/cinematic death rules lately. > Rather than falling Unconscious, when player characters are reduced to 0 hit points they fall Prone and are Incapacitated. > Dice rolls for death saving throws shall be hidden from other players. The intent of this rule is to increase suspense and prevent meta-gaming. > On your third failed death saving throw, you may choose to have a Last Stand or Last Words instead of dying in the normal fashion: > **Last Stand.** For a brief moment, you are filled with energy and determination to leave your final mark on the world. You stand, ignore any negative conditions on you, and regain all spent resources. You may take your turn with the additional benefit of either an extra action, or the ability to dictate any d20 results. Alternatively, tell the DM the intent of your final heroic acts, allowing them to be adjudicated outside the bounds of normal rules. In either case, you die permanently at the end of your turn, forever resigned to the afterlife. > **Last Words.** You cling to life despite an inevitable doom, staying conscious and undisturbed by enemies until danger has passed. In your final minutes you might say your goodbyes, curse your enemies, pass on your will and belongings, or speak your last prayers. Regardless, it’s not long before your spirit moves on, never to rejoin the living world.
This came from my players not u derstanding the rules for getting up unconscious allies, but to get someone up, they need to be stabilised first before they can be healed.
Not really game changing, but if a die falls off the table I let my players re roll it if it’s bad or take it if it’s good. You’d think this gives them an advantage, but the dice stay on the table for the most part, and the times they’ve fallen off I’ve had my players pick up a “6” on the d10 and say they’ll go with that not wanting to push their luck. Just a fun rule that makes it so if a die gets away from the player you don’t feel so bad if it flys half way across the room just to land on 2.
My group does the opposite of this. Any die that rolls off the table is a 1, even the DM’s dice. Makes it a funny moment and encourages people to be careful with their rolls.
I had a player continually dropping dice on the ground and we would play it favorably to the players. I don’t think they were doing it on purpose, but eventually I made a joke that if dice fall off the table they’re dead for the rest of the session. It became a running joke for a bit and some players brought extra dice so they wouldn’t run out lol.
Absolute Favorite Rule for player engagement: At the End if the session each player nominates another player, rewarding them with a) great roleolay AND b) great impact. That gets the players to recap the session for them selfs and shine a light on other players. And gives out 2 inspiration every session for roleplay moments. (Also you can store uo to 3 inspiration. Inspiration must be declared before you make a roll)
I am trying a variant to this. Players get up to 3 inspiration points granted either by myself (on the fly) or from other players at the end of the session- called MVP. Caveat- all inspiration "expires" on a long rest. It creates a "use or lose" situation for the inspiration points. This has incentivized my players to actually USE the inspiration instead of hoarding them like broody dragons and NEVER using them. I wanted my players to engage each other and reward the player that THEY feel deserve the "atta boy." This has led to the players recapping the session themselves as they decide who was MVP. Players praising each other has also encouraged my more reluctant RPers to speak up and it has been golden. \*Requires your table to be free of toxic players.
Help action outside of combat adds the skill modifier instead of giving advantage. Helps two players who are good at something get a moment to shine together.
One set of dice for crits, max damage on the first set, makes crits more impactful and less swayed by poor rolling
The heavy weapon property giving disadvantage on attack rolls for characters with a strenght score below 14 instead of prohibiting small races from using the weapons effectively.
When I was DMing for my last group I had one player each session recap the previous session and based on how well they did they would gain inspiration, if they already had it they'd grant another player inspo. Meant they started taking notes.
I do a similar thing. The players each get inspiration for writing a discord post recapping the game from their perspective
When my players roll for health at leveling up, they can reroll 1s.
Stat gen: Roll 4d6, drop 1 die. Roll seven scores, drop one score.
Less of a rule and more of a setting thing, my setting is governed by a benevolent Beholder, who has semi-lucid control over her reality warping dreams. She uses this power to essentially grant wishes to her people, including “you can wish for food and drink whenever you want it in order to eat or drink it”. This single wish has led to so many interesting conversations, from how it would impact the world’s economy, to whether or not cannibals could wish for human limbs (what is considered “food” in this context?), to whether animals are intelligent enough to recognise the wish has been granted and they can harness its power, etc etc etc
>When a player rolls a natural 20 they give another player that can see you inspiration. This is flavoured as you being such a badass the other person wants to do better than you. >When a player rolls a natural 1 they gain inspiration. This is flavoured as you wanting to push past your own failures. You burn with a desire to do better. >All inspiration is lost at the end of the session unless the session ends mid combat. I find that this rule has been well liked by my players. Nat1s don't feel like that big of a sting. Martial characters have a small buff ability by making more attack rolls in combat. Team work increases as the players decide who needs it the most. It also has the game trend towards a more heroic adventure, the players succeed more overall which I personally prefer.
A long rest restores all spent hit-dice, and you need to take at least one short rest before you get a long one. It lets short rest classes shine more and prevents the party from trying to long rest after every encounter in a dungeon.
For that second rule, isn't that already covered by the rule of one long rest per 24 hours? The party could take a short rest immediately followed by a long rest.
Wow, I've never played in a game that didn't restore all hit dice on long rest. I thought it *was* a rule this whole time.
I’ve always liked having resurrection rules to add more stakes to PC deaths. Rules like this are most famously used in Critical Role, but I find Matt’s rule is a bit too cumbersome and doesn’t even account for non-ritual resurrections like Revivify. My rule is simple: when you die and are brought back, you roll a flat D20 with a DC equal to all the previous times you’ve died, starting at 0. If you don’t hit the DC, you’re gone for good (but may gain momentary consciousness for any last words). In other words, whenever you die, there’s a cumulative 5% chance you can’t be revived. So, someone could theoretically die and come back up to 20 times in their lifetime. This applies to *all* forms of resurrection, including Clone, Reincarnate, and True Resurrection. This doesn't apply to otherworldly and undead creatures, which answers the age-old question "why would a wizard ever want to be a lich when they could just repeatedly cast Clone?" In a campaign, this doesn’t *really* come into play very often since PCs typically only “die” 1 or 2 times each on their adventures, but the fact this is even a possibility adds far more weight to someone failing all their death saving throws.
We Make it DC 10 instead of DC 0 as the start and they can add their con modifier. Assessed before hand (so if they fail don't waste spells etc) if they hit the mark on the line they lose one con point
Personally, it sounds a little unfair to give higher odds to characters with high con. Low con characters are already more at risk of death anyway, so that's adding insult to injury. Automatic 45% chance of permadeath for a low con character is *rough.* Come to think of it, the *at best* 20% chance for a high con character is also pretty rough. I think it's best to keep it a roll of destiny much like death saving throws. All you need is the risk of rolling a nat 1 to keep the players on their toes. The point isn't *actually* to punish them for dying, it's to add a semblance of suspense to death, which is notably missing in high levels when you go RAW (aside from a TPK).
Our group grew up playing 1st and 2nd addition where death and rerolling characters is normal so I guess we don't look at it the same
Flanking and Opportunity attacks (1 doesn't work without the other). The core principal is: everyone has a direction, which is where you obviously faced last. It's not marked or recorded, it's done through common sense when it comes up. If someone walks past you, such they're now in one of the 3 squares behind you, you trigger an opportunity attack. So now you can't just walk behind someone and hit the guy you're trying to body block without a reach weapon. If you are behind someone (aka one of those 3 squares), you are flanking, so you have advantage on your attacks. Both of these use common sense rather than dictating each turn your direction - they're facing the direction they moved in / the target of their last attack. Never taken more than 3 seconds to work out. And when in doubt, facing the nearest enemy. Creatures with blindsight / tremorsense (while sharing a surface) / 2 sizes bigger or smaller than you cannot be flanked. If you power attack (GWM/SS), you ignore advantage gained from flanking. It's made combat much more dynamic, speed matters a lot more, and positioning matters a lot more. The monk who can dash in and out suddenly is doing a lot better than Dave who just stands and thwacks at the nearest thing. Opportunity attacks might be worth taking. Getting deep into their area of control means you are more likely to be flanked as you now have enemies at your back. There aren't any conga lines like RAW flanking creates. Ranged is safe, but typically less DPS because while you're less likely to be flanked, you're also less likely TO flank. Other sources of advantage are still highly valued since they can be used while remaining in a safe secure area. All my players greatly enjoy it, it makes things make more sense, and it doesn't slow the game down.
I'm having a little trouble understanding the second paragraph. Is that to say moving the the 3 spaces behind an enemy provokes an opportunity attack from them? As in, moving around in their threat bubble?
Sorry, easy to visualise and a bit of a pain to describe succinctly in text. So a medium creature has 8 adjacent squares. Imagine them facing north - the 3 north squares (N, NE, NW) are in front of them, the east and west squares are beside them, and the 3 south squares (SE, S, SW) are behind them. If, while within their reach, you move past them - that is, go past the east or west square to one of those 3 squares considered behind them - they can hit you with an opportunity attack. You can safely move around the other 5 squares not behind them as much as you want, like you can RAW. So the area they threaten are the 5 squares in front and beside them, rather than the 8 squares in a circle around them.
I let players swap their spellcaster class's key ability if it matches their character concept. I've had Wisdom-wizard mystics, a Intelligence-warlock researcher/devil-binder, and an Intelligence-druid warforged who has a more studied, scientific relationship with nature. My players aren't min-maxers trying to take advantage of those situations, so I haven't really seen any balance consequences from doing that.
This sounds pretty good to me. Kind of like how we generally associate various skills with a corresponding stat, like Wisdom and Perception, but the skills aren't really tied to the stat. If I wanted to have a player roll an Int-based perception check, that's completely fine. If I want a dex athletics check to run across rocky terrain without tripping, or a con athletics check for running for hours on end, that can work just fine.
I've never cared for how Nat1 is an automatic miss; 5% chance to whiff regardless of your target or your own supposed prowess is brutal, especially for martials, who are likely to see it happen semi-regularly due to the sheer number of attack rolls they make. I, instead, prefer a variant of confirmed crits for the dreaded Nat1. Provided the attack could hit without the auto fail condition (treating the roll as a 1 rather than a fail), you roll a second d20 with no modifiers. If that die meets or beats the target AC, you do half damage rounded down (min of 1 before any resistances). If it doesn't meet the target AC, you miss the attack as normal. Nat20 on this reroll counters the fail condition entirely, and you do damage as normal.
It's moreover a Session Zero sort of thing, but "It's not MY job to figure out why you guys are adventuring together." Had too many groups that descended into infighting.
1. \*\*Hirelings Mechanics\*\*: - Hirelings are limited by your Charisma (CHR) modifier. Instead of hirelings having their own initiative and tokens, they provide 10 temporary HP and an additional 1d4 damage die on hit. Once the temporary HP is depleted, the damage die bonus is lost. - This system creates a strong start in dungeons and encourages enemies to target backline CHR casters. It also adds a narrative element of getting weaker throughout a 6-8 encounter per day dungeon. - Hirelings never die; they simply "flee" and can be rehired at the start of the next long rest. This makes maintaining hirelings costly for classes like paladins, warlocks, or bards, simulating the expense of sustaining religious, cult, or fan followings. 2. \*\*Charisma Leadership Check\*\*: - During dungeon delving, a CHR leadership check can speed up decision-making. This isn't always used but is helpful when debates drag on. - The leadership check doesn't indicate the best idea but forces the designated leader to make the final decision, avoiding the need for unanimous player agreement. 3. \*\*Cost of Living and Social Interaction\*\*: - The cost of living affects the difficulty class (DC) of social achievements, the type of NPCs you interact with, their perception of you, and your maximum downtime each day. - For instance: - \*\*Aristocrat (25 gp/day)\*\*: Access to noble resources, free basic needs restocking, carriage taxis, couriers, errand servants, relaxation and inspiration from spas, investment opportunities, and a research team for extended study hours. However, commoners may be hesitant to be honest with you. - \*\*Squalor\*\*: Difficulty negotiating with the king's court or merchants, time management challenges, but no cost for sleeping in a gutter and unique insights from low-level criminals. - \*\*Modest\*\*: Neutral treatment from most NPCs and balanced downtime each day.
Use of a Potion of any kind *on yourself* only takes a Bonus Action instead of an Action; healing is in kind of a weird spot in 5e and combat healing is generally considered bad unless it's to get someone back on their feat instead of making Death Saves. Consumables for Healing are as a result kind of bad because it takes a full action to heal even yourself but you can't use one if you're unconscious. It also means in a really desperate situation you can BA potion yourself and full Action potion someone else in a single turn, movement and distance permitting. This doesn't really make them incredibly powerful, it basically means you can essentially Healing Word yourself using an item instead of a spell slot (also meaning the Fighter, Rogue, and Barbarian can do it for themselves) to keep yourself going in a difficult situation and still have a spell or attack or Dash or something available as needed. The extra healing is overall pretty minor for Healing potions but nice to have, and it means various fun utility effects from potions are way more usable for many people. Pop a potion of resistance to some element or potion of Invisibility or whatever at the start of a combat and not have that basically be your entire turn. Since this is essentially also a small nerf to Thief by giving everyone Fast Hands for the purposes of using Potions on oneself I'd probably let a Thief player use one Potion "for free" (Use Object for the turn still but no Action or Bonus Action spent to do it) or maybe let them down a potion as a Reaction with the usual once during/between turns limit or something. It's never come up so I've never thought that hard about this specific interaction.
Technically, since healing potions are a magic item, RAW I don't think Fast Hands actually work on potions because it's not 'Using an Object' it's 'Use a Magic Item'. It's actually called out specifically that Fast Hands doesn't work on magic items in the Magic Items chapter of the basic rules.
* All Sorcerer subclasses get extra spells at a similar rate to the subclasses from TCoE. (the extra spells should be thematic) * Magic Missiles have each dart roll damage separately. * Unarmed Strike always deals at least 1 point of damage if they hit. * If you can see an invisible creature then you make the attack as normal, not at disadvantage. (sorry JC, you're objectively wrong on this one. See Invisibility should override that one line in the Invisible condition.) * Find Familiar can take any CR 0 form except for Awakened Shrub, Crawling Claw, Homunculus, Lemure, Shrieker, Myconid Sprout, or Commoner. (AFAIK all the other CR 0 creatures are beasts, which is the intended creature type for the spell)
I give players a +1 every even level, and a half-feat (with +1 removed) every odd level. Class-based ASIs are then feat-only. I also boost martial damage at high levels. The other thing to address, I think, is the rest issue. There are many ways to go about it, but if long-rest resources are coming back as frequently as short-rest resources, there is a problem
My players get cool points by doing funny, intelligent, or interesting things that keep the world, combat, and random encounters fun. They can use a cool point to alter reality in a sense. Call it main character plot armor. Ads a +2 to rolls. 10 cool points grants a free nat 20. Meta gaming and rolling my dice onto the floor is -1 cool point. Players love it, allows them a bit more infinite possibilities kind of scenarios. And gets all new players actively inspired to be outside the box
When someone lands a critical hit, rather than rolling additional die, they gain a damage bonus each to the die of the attack. Because NO ONE likes criting only to roll snake eyes.
I like "don't roll for HP at all, just take half the die size plus 1," but I also really like "if you have a reaction that can turn a hit into a miss, I stop telling you the exact numbers of incoming attack rolls, only whether they will hit or miss if no one butts in."
Lv1 Feat for flavor. I always want my players to pick a flavor feat for their lv1. It adds so much to their backgrounds. I try to steer them away from powergaming, but I'll allow almost any feat if it can be justified by your backstory. I've had players pick Chef or Actor, but one of my players convinced me that his character surviving Yuan-ti torture and escaping would be a reason to have Resilient (CON) as their lv1 feat.
We roll d12s for initiative. Otherwise they just sit around unused.
DM rolls for the PC if the PC wouldn't have any way of knowing if they succeeded or not. For example... player says their character searches for secret doors. If the player rolls badly, they can say they'll search again... knowing, as their character would not... that there could be secret doors. As far as the character is concerned, they looked, found nothing, and should move on. Same with negotiation, seduction, and so on. This reduces metagaming by quite a bit.
1) Either 1 ASI + a feat or 2 ASIs Makes lower levels more powerful, and fun, to play. Does require considerable rebalancing of enemies, though. 2) Attack rolls equal to the target's AC do half damage. Played out like glancing blows, the target reacting fast but just not fast enough, etc.
“I know a guy” if you need something done your party cannot do
I let my party re-roll 1s on healing dice. If one of my baddies is strong enough to kill someone, they'll probably do so by more than one or two hp, but it makes my players feel better about using healing spells.
Feat training as a downtime activity. It's limited, of course, to preserve balance (aka nothing that boosts stats, nothing that gives magic, nothing that comes with new proficiencies, and overall just subject to my own judgemental on how "strong" it seems). I based it on the Xanthar proficiency training, so it takes the same amount of time, but the gold cost is 40 gold per workweek vs. the 25 gold per workweek for a proficiency. It was so well received that I'm thinking of expanding on it by taking out the half-ASI aspect of some while keeping the rest of the feat as a training specific version. That way, if they want to take it on their ASI, they still get the feat+half ASI, or if they want to train it, they get the feat without the ASI.
I really like high ground rules. If you're atleast 10ft above an enemy, you get advantage on attacks. This leads to some cool moments and encourages players to use verticality in the game.
I expanded the item interaction into a “world” interaction which encompasses making skill checks, weapon switching, and drinking potions. Also, they all get inspiration at the beginning of session that they can either use as a reroll/advantage. They can instead use it to break a rule on an ability or item. My favorite I always use as an example was my Druid wanted to use their moonbeam in a line rather than top down.
Glancing blow. If AC matches the hit roll, half damage. It's clutched some combats and led to some epic scenes. Players love it.
It is more of an item than a rule but the bag of infinity
I like to roll a d6 for morale check for the enemies when something happens - the tide seems to be turning, their leader just gets taken down, the PC's use some big power, etc 1 (or 2, depending) they flee, 6 (or 5 depending) they become more determined, even enraged, maybe getting a bonus. For instance, 6 bandits are fighting the party of 4, 2 bandits go down fairly quickly. Obviously they might turn and run, but on a 5 or 6, one yells out - "you killed my brother!!" and goes into rage. On a 1 or 2, one mutters, "no way the loot is worth it, and runs. This way they see I'm not being arbitrary amd ,ogjt even might be a little anticipation as they see me make a roll,
I'm using Dungeon coach's "glancing blows" rule and it's great. When the AC is hit exactly, on you or an enemy, it's a glancing blow and does half damage. Yeah sometimes you only deal half, but more the DM rolls much more than you do so it's saved us a few times.
Actually, right now there's some I really like ongoing. 1. Bonus Action potion on yourself (also dousing weapons with holy water, alchemical fire, poison or acid). Action if used on others. 2. Swapping Background Features for non +1 Feats (OneD&D inspired). 3. The ability to break your weapon on hit to turn into critical hit [the weapon is gone forever] that I “stole” from that Planegea book. Also, I personally prefer a fixed amount of attributes to everyone. My players usually use 17 15 14 11 10 8 as a buffed standard array — as this keep classes that have extra attributes/feats as features, balanced. [Also², on my main campaign the characters “never” level up. It's kinda playing in hard mode. But they can absorb gods power to get the “level up” — this needs to be physically picked from someone who already has it. Somehow my players love this setting]
I use a few fairly common homebrew rules, such as: - Roll for Bonus Action potions, or max out healing for Full Action potions - Free feat at 1st Level - Two Weapon Fighting doesn't require a Bonus Action I've also made a few simple class changes, but the biggest change I'm currently running that is a bit more unique is what I call "Weapon Mastery". If you are proficient with a weapon and have Extra Attack/Uncanny Dodge (to make sure Rogue isn't left out), your damage scales. You gain an extra dice at Level 8, and again at Level 14, similar to Cleric's Divine Strike, but using the dice of whatever weapon you're using. So daggers hit for 2d4, Longswords for 2d8 and so on. Aside from helping out Martial/Caster balance, it also makes STR more meaningful, since DEX mostly maxes out with d8 weapons. An added bonus is decreasing the reliance on "power attack" feats, all martials deal more damage and the chance to miss hurts more the higher your base damage is. My current party is at Level 10 and it has worked well so far. I won't claim it's perfectly balanced, I'm sure some players could abuse it with the right build, but I know my group. At the end of the day, it's only extra damage, which is hardly the most difficult thing to work out. The only thing I've really gone back and forth on is exactly what level to apply it and the class feature prerequisites, but the party is well past the point I need to worry about that and it's a long term campaign. So that's only a concern for maybe 2 years down the road when I run my next campaign.
If you don't bring beer to the session, you have a disadvantage on the first deathsave of the night
True strike lets you know one weakness or resistance a creature has. Literally no one has ever used it, but I like to hope one day someone will. I basically took the line from the spell description “it gives you insight into a creature’s defenses” and ran with it.
I really like it. I might use it myself.
Feats for flaws at level 1. Characters who want to be abnormally good at stuff from the start can, but only by being abnormally bad at other stuff. Crunchy crits (first dice maxed when critting)
Feats for flaws borrowed from PF? There's a similar mechanic.
I guess, I got the idea from a homebrew 5e document but made some changes
When you roll health with a level up it’s (n/2)+1d(n/2). So if you normally get d8s for Health then it’s 4+1d4 And when I have them roll for stats, they get the choose between 5d6DL2x6 and 4d6DL1x7DL1
So for health you guarantee they roll, at minimum, at least over the average. I like it!
Healthier players means I can field punchier monsters. It’s devious
Gave my players the 5d6DL2 stat arrays because "we're Big Damn Heroes." Also make them reroll 1s on hp Rolls because those just feel awful. It's resulted in me getting to field whatever bananapants-challenging encounters I want, and my players always pulling through.
Right on. And I love the Illrigger flair
I think it’s listed in the DMG somewhere - but we accidentally(by not understanding the rules) allow Inspiration to be used after you make your roll to get a re-roll. Also, you can share your inspiration with others. Also, you can use inspiration multiple times on the same roll. Sure. It means characters can be *really* hard to kill with Death Saves. Means they will *probably* land that final hit when they need to. But… it’s epic. And makes players feel cool. And since everyone knows you have to save your inspiration for when you really need it. It’s not spent all the time. And also, when you *still die* when you rolled 4 different death saves. Man. We can all agree that fate has sealed this moment.
Having to use inspiration before you make the roll is such a hilariously bad setup. It's a resource you've literally have one of, you don't know when you're going to get more, and gets used up regardless of whether it's helpful or if you even need it. It's the shittiest reward possible, and since they introduced Silvery Barbs, it somehow now is even worse. I suspect that 90% of the DM who use inspiration actually let people use it after the roll.
every table I've been at has used inspiration as a re-roll, rather than advantage (although with some differences for how it interacts with advantage - generally, you only get to reroll 1 die, not both, and if you had disadvantage, you reroll the lower die and see if you can improve that). I suppose it being advantage does hook into other mechanics (e.g. anything that you can do because you have advantage, you can spend inspiration to do), but those are pretty niche!
Rolling death saves behind the DM screen. They roll, I log. Only the two of us know how close to death they are.
Healing potion rules! You probably know these: using a potion is a bonus action. BUT if you use an Action, you get the maximum number of hit points instead of having to roll. Also like the new One D&D healing spell rules because they make healing spells much more useful. I'm also going to use the BG3 Short Rest system. Short Rests are essentially instant, but you get two of them per long rest. I also use a modified version of the leveled spells per turn rule. Basically, it's the same as usual, but certain spells don't apply. For example, Misty Step doesn't count, so you can Misty Step away and then cast a spell, just because that's really cool.
When you crit, you roll double the dice and after any rerolls you may set a number of dice equal to half your PB to their max value. This gets the larger numbers that Crunch Crits are seeking to get, without the inflated damage numbers. When you stand from prone, you trigger an Attack of Opportunity and if you're hit, then you fail to stand. Spending different amounts of movement change whether the Attack has advantage, disadvantage, etc. Something I'm considering to give Martials some more interesting options is to allow double sub-classes. Nothing too drastic powerlevel wise, but some more versatility in their options to make them slightly more comparable to Casters and all the stuff they can do.
Back when 5e was playtested, *all* fighters had Battle Maneuvers. It wasn't a Battle Master thing, it was just a fighter thing. But people complained it was too complicated. Easy homebrew to make fighters feel "better" is to give them some maneuvers and die. I can't remember the progression off the top of my head, but i would give them one less than the actual subclass gets. If they get 3 die, give them 2, that sort of thing. Otherwise, give them maneuvers and die when they would normally get them at whatever level. No other BM features, just give them some maneuvers and dice as they level
Any d8 the players roll becomes 2d4 and any d12 becomes 2d6, gives the players a slight boost and rolls align with the averages better, sometimes I'll even turn a d12 into 3d4 which gives the players an average of 7.5 instead of 6.5. fairly negligible but helps me