"People assume that the employees of Wizards of the Coast are walking around the offices wearing lab coats and they have degrees in game-ology... they don't. They're working in cubicles to deadlines, they're average people just like you and me." - guy with Professor Dungeon Master nameplate behind him.
Shout out to Veronica, the real hero out there on the front lines and the realest wizard casting fireballs at every available opportunity!!! I cannot wait to play again with my D&D family soon!
House rule, 1st-level wizard gets initiative and amazingly bets the 12th-level fighter in full plate armor. Strength / Dex Reflex check. Roll touch attack vs AC:12 End result, the newbie wizard " hip toss " the warlord over the railing to a 60ft drop into the horse trough.
I rewatch older episodes frequently as well. Before I found this channel I used to follow six or seven different D&D channels pretty regularly. After I found this one that became only 3 including this one.
That's kind of you to say and inspires me to keep going. As we speak I'm photographing minis for the episode on City Adventures. It takes 12 hours to make an episode, so one Thursday is all I can handle!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I appreciate the effort. Really is the number one channel for d&d in my opinion. People call your ideas "radical". But like youve said, many homebrew rules become rules proper in the future. Not to mention how GG said rules are a guideline. Your vids and runehammers got me into d&d and me and my son love it.
I'm actually young enough that dnd 5e is the system first I've played. I'm frankly completely pissed off that the starter set doesn't give new dms nearly enough to have an idea of how to do their job. Even the dmg is more like a collection of optional rules and lore than a guide on how to dm. Your videos are kind of the reason I'm switching to ftd and we're having the first game next week.
I'm in the same boat. WotC is really bad at teaching you how to play their game. Fortunately a lot of indy/OSR RPGs do have propper GM guides in their systems.
For how to prepare sessions and master games, I highly recommend Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master: www.dmsguild.com/product/251431/Return-of-the-Lazy-Dungeon-Master And Scott "Angry GM" Rehm's Game Angry: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280384/Game-Angry-How-to-RPG-The-Angry-Way
The Fun-gineers at WOC work hard, consult the bones, and study ancient lore to create a completely flawless game system- it cannot be changed - until 6E - then it can change again
" cough, cough, cough," They Wayne just because your parents named you " Bruce " does not mean you have to play a Detective in every RPG you play. Ok got that " Batman." .. ! Cool thing is, my old buddy Wayne did become a police detective by the time he was 27 years old in 2007.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Decades ago, I worked for Mobil's Strategic Planning Dept. One project I was asked to do was a 'What If" Scenario on "What If War broke out in the Middle East".
For magic, I've a house ruled spell check to determine how successful the spell is, but since the wizard is risking magical corruption, I've decided that the result is never "nothing happens." Magic always happens; it's just not always what the wizard intended, or upon the person they targeted.
Hey professor DM, Do you have any opinions on Fate RPG and/or Accelerated? I feel like a lot of ideas that you propose in modding DnD e.g. lower amounts of hit points, zone based movement, a focus on the pure "roll this or higher and you pass", the awesome points that you can use to change the outcome of things that happen somewhat parallel fate points, levelling up not being very important. That, plus the extreme moddability and narrative focus of the system seems like it would be relatively ideal for your purposes. Maybe there's a video in it?
As a service member who started watching your videos to DM for shipmates while we were underway, best of luck to your son in the Army. Now, real talk, where did you get that killer tie?
Good luck to your son from a recently discharged Soldier. He's set up for success too, you'd be amazed how many one-shots I ran on slow days in the motor pool.
Thank you! I once had a friend who was stationed in a missile silo in Europe. They played D&D all the time! Thanks for your kind words and your service.
No hit points! Armor absorbs Damage until it breaks then we roll on a wounds table, loose hand, arm, leg eye or even die from shock. You have 8-10 health points that wear down for each round you are poisoned, bleeding, burning and dazed when characters reach 0 they die. Health healing comes from spiritual character in tuned with the divine. Success deepened on their good standing and devotion. A proper rest also restores health [burning, poisoning, dazed, bleeding]. Mental stability is effected when a characters takes a wounds hit. 0 mental stability character is now a babbling NPC. Perhaps becoming a villain. Anyone can try anything - weapons, wands, stealth, climbing etc. Characters don't get special attacks from a class [there are no classes], they get special attacks based on the weapon being using. Any character can try to use the special attack provided they have reflex points. All attacks are based on the dexterity modifier. [HCI - Hit Chance Increase] Magic comes from a wand, rod or staves which hold a certain amount of charges. Each magic item is based on lightening, fire, water, frost, wind, earth etc. Any one can use them based on characters intelligence modifier. Bards have 3 songs that can either peace, provoke or discordance a creature. Each turn the bard must re roll to see if they can maintain the song or become disrupted. Ohh wait that is our house rules.
@@federicoriva3592 Armor is rated based on durability having a max of 8 absorption [1=cloth, padded, leather, studded, ring, chain and 8 = plate]. There are 8 hit locations [1 =head, neck, hands, arms, chest, waist, legs, 8 = feet]. DMs rolls both a roll d20 and a d8 at the same time. If it hits we know the location and remove 1 from the durability. If there is no durability at that location then we roll on a D20 wounds table which looks like this 1-2 dead.... 3-4 permeant disability [limb loss, blind eye, shattered front teeth], 5-20 temporal [knock down etc]. At max armor character can take lots of hits because its 8 durability per hit locations. Mot of my players only have 3 durability in each location. Even if armor durability is 0 characters just need to clear a 1 or 2 on the wounds table and they are safe! If not then the rest of the party will have to dig a grave. I allow players to do their own roll for the wounds table. Nothing like seeing players rolls when their character needs it most. So much for hand picked lucky dice. On the character sheet we have bubbles that we fill in for each piece of armor. So if you take a hit you erase one bubble. Works out nice and easy to manage. Head: 00 00 00 00 Neck: 00 00 00 00 Hands: 00 00 00 00 For regular monsters ill just give traditional hit points and for boss monsters ill set some durability values for 4 zones. The Monster wounds table is 1-10 = death 11-18 creature shakes it off 19-20 creatures is enraged and gets an extra attack [or special attack]. We allow players to call target at -2 to an attack roll. My players enjoying hitting the neck repeatedly until the head dis attaches, I'm not sure what that is about. *rubs neck*. Our game table consist of 6 player adventurers and 1 DM. It moves along pretty good and id say the thing I like about it from a DM stand point is hit location rolls. The hit location rolls tell me what is happening and then we get to let the story generate from that as well. Hope that helps!
@@Mystic-realm Wow, very very nice Thank you, I'll make sure to keep this message saved for future campaigns Hope your players don't cut your head off😅😂
@@federicoriva3592 *gulp*. You're very welcome. At first the players were shocked I didn't let them roll 4d6 [remove the weakest one] on character creation instead I let them re roll their 6s on the first round [lower is better in our game, easier for skill checks]. And then... there was no spot to put in the Hit Points. Shocked! Their mouths were wide open and one of them accidentally auto burped. lol. Now im the one auto burping. We wish you good fortune in the adventures to come! ~ Frederick & Jennifer
I absolutely agree with your basic thesis. I've made changes to every game I've ever run and to my eye many of those changes have made the games better. (Some have made them actively worse and it's possible that some of my players might disagree with my assessment, but that's the risk you take.) If you and your players are happy, there's not a problem. That said, be very careful with the changes you make. Depending on the game system you're using and the changes you make, it can be the case that unexpected or inobvious consequences may attend upon any change. While I often disagree with rules designers' decisions, they certainly spend more time than I do thinking about their games. And sometimes there are dependencies that are both crucial and not easy to see. As to whether you're playing D&D? I'd say no, because your game is about as closely related to any published version of D&D as d20 Call of Cthulhu or (to use a much earlier example) Empire of the Petal Throne. This is not intended as a value judgement (not least because I haven't considered "D&D" as a label to be a selling point since the late '70s), just an issue of _truth_ in labeling. I would consider the game that you have described to be a heavily house-ruled descendant of D&D ... same genus, different species.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Doug. I agree about being careful when making changes. One rule can have a huge unintended effect on other rules. Cheers!
I am on a quest to collect all the house rules on RUclips - I have many of your videos in my collection - would you consider making a follow up to this video to share your current top 5, 5 more, or less well known house rules?
For decades my rules for spell casting is this. Your Intelligence (or Wisdom for clerics) forms the basis for your Craft (Arcane Casting) skill, which is a class skill bestowed automatically to the class. To successfully cast the spell, you roll equal or less than your Arcane Casting skill. Having to engage in melee combat can potentially breaks your concentration, if the character takes 1 > HP damage, the DM can assign a -1 to -3 negative modifier to being able to successfully cast the spell. Also a natural 1 indicates the spell backfires in some way (appropriate to the spell). Also I give prime requisite bonuses to spell memorisation - i.e. a mage with Int 9-12 has no bonus, Int 13-15 has +1 spell per spell level, Int 16-17 +2 bonus to spells per spell level etc... As a side note, this can make for some interesting characters, because you can allow a perosn to spend Non-weapon proficiency skill slots to augment their skill to Craft (arcane casting)+1 or more. This along with weapon mastery allows you to develop a kind of hardened battle mages, which many of my players have been giddy to play.
I'm a fan of the channel but I have to say I won't be using any of those house rules my groups seems to like the 5e rules the way they are with a crit table added
Jack Vance’s characters DID sometimes miscast spells, with disastrous effects. Check out the Dying Earth novel The Eyes of the Overworld, for example: "Cugel hastily consulted the workbook and saw that in error he had transposed a pair of pervulsions, thereby reversing the quality of the spell. . . . "
This makes me think of using a house rule where the DM rolls secretly when you try to copy a spell into your spellbook, but instead of just failing you've copied it incorrectly and the first time you try to cast it something will go horribly wrong.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 You really, really need to fix that. Or at least read the RPG from Pelgrane, which catches the flavor of the setting nicely. I think you'll be surprised to find out how little the RPG hobby's idea of "Vancian casting" resembles the magic in Vance's actual books. No character of Vance's would dream of casting something as prosaically named as "Fireball" and the only people skilled enough to be capable of memorizing more than a handful of spells at once don't bother doing so, they rely on what amount to contracted overworld spirit servants to create Limited Wish like effects at will instead. Actual memorized fire-and-forget D&D-style spells are for the relatively young and inexperienced magicians (who might, at most, be able to carry 5-6 of them at once in their minds) or overconfident dabblers like Cugel (who usually come to a sticky end by botching a cast).
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Strongly recommended if & when you can find the chance, though I'm sure you may be tired of hearing that ;). It's kind of sad really though how badly vancian magic was butchered in it's conversion to the D&D rules we all know & love/hate. Way more dependence on magical items vs spells, way fewer spell slots ( I want to say in the 1st story that the arch mage had a grand total of ONE, since chromatic spray occupied his whole brain), along with explanation on WTH spells & 'slots' even are. A lot of times I wish more folks would go back to the books & try to better emulate what was there vs. going the more sadly tried & true route of 'vancian magic sucks'
You realize that your group is the exception, not the norm? I've never DMed or played in a group that glossed over the rules, and treated D&D as a casual pastime.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I've played since 1979. My first module was Keep on the Borderlands. My first character was a magic user with 2hp , a dagger and magic missile, and I survived. You actually played with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson?
DM rolling player death saves is still my favorite house rule. I actually had a player sweating from the suspense not knowing if my roll was a pass or fail.
I believe in openly rolling for anything the PCs would be able to perceive. I think your dying PC would at least be able to know they're making their saves or not. How about kicking unconscious players out of the room until their PCs regain consciousness?
@@Joshuazx PCs are unconscious when making Death Saves. How would they know they're dying or not? And kicking players out of the room while their PC is unconscious is liable to cause hurt feelings.
I liked this rule at first, but I changed my mind. One of my players made a good point, that they might have the right to roll a die that will outright kill them. Alternatively, I adopted a different system to add tension to death saving throws from the Dungeon Coach RUclips channel. When players fail death saving throws they gain a level of exhaustion, and whenever a player goes down they start with a number of failed death saving throws equal to their level of exhaustion.
I think Adventurers League breeds resistance to (anyone) homebrewing. IMO it also constrains WotC in making some rule changes. I played AL for a bit and there were players that just didn't get why anyone would run a homebrew setting with some of their own rule and didn't even consider looking at UA because "what's the point?".
If you can't handle being able to mod the rules to your group, you need to turn in your DM license. There is literally not a game on earth--board game, video game, ttrpg or active sport--where I haven't played a variant of it with "house rules." That's where the term comes from: they are rules for "your house." Like the standard rules, you don't need to have house rules--naturally, if your group prefers the labyrinthine rule sets for D&D or Pathfinder or whatever you play, then more power to you. But for most of us out here, we like to add our own twist on those rules, eliminating elements that are too technical or boring and adding sets we think make the game more immersive and more believable. Or, you might say... more fun. Since... you know... that IS the whole point.
Hey Professor - if I had something to send to you, where would I get in touch? We just released the first issue of our magazine Tabletops & Tentacles and I'm not looking for a review or anything, just thought you might enjoy a copy. I've subscribed to you for over a year and your videos have been incredibly helpful to me and I wanted to say thanks.
I’m intrigued by the Player facing combat. Do you pair it with any modifiers? Or is that just built into armor class? It’s very curious... the heavy armor wearers and the dexterity derived ACs feel different here. I need to think on it more. Either way, thanks for the nuanced and helpful video.
Hey I'm excited for this because while our preferences in D&D and roleplaying games are very different It's always interesting to hear such a wildly variant point of view to the opinions I'm usually surrounded by. Normally I dungeon master, but as a player my primary concern when I hear a lot of your house rules from earlier videos is that I would feel like my choices don't have any mechanical meaning as a player. If my characters hit points cap at a low value that isn't really even that varied based on class/stat/race because as a whole you want combat to be quick and deadly then I feel like no matter what I do as a player I'm just beholden to dying if I get hit. If everything in the room is a specified difficulty class to make adjudication faster, and you judge whether I can do something based on what archtype I'm playing (fighter, thief, cleric, magic user) then my character as an individual doesn't matter. I'm going to be just as good at lockpicking as every other thief. If everyone gets one action on a turn then really it just feels like I'm throwing my one thing into the pot and while it does make it more of a collaborative effort I almost feel like I could be missing from the table and it wouldn't matter. I have no way of leveraging rules because there's no foundation that the player has any control over. Which is definitely something that seems by design, after all your the dungeon master, what you say goes. However it just seems too far in that direction for me because I feel like I wouldn't even have control over my own character- their success and failure isn't even determined by the dice, it just feels like its arbitrary decision making that isn't transparent at all- like I'm just along for a ride and I'm getting whatever narrative stew is delivered. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it feels like it breaks a lot of the trust I'd expect at the table because as a player there should be moments where the DM loses control too. That's what really makes it a collaborative storytelling experience.
Hi! I think what this boils down to is what kind of experience you are looking for at your table: if the majority of people on the table tend toward the tactician spectrum of player personalities and derive most of their fun from crunching the numbers and mastering the mechanics, many of these proposed changes are not meant for that table. These house rules aim to facilitate and accelerate a more narrative and/or thespian playstyle. For players who derive most of their fun from these game aspects, it is not the HP or the AC or their proficiency in some skill that defines their character, but their, well... *character*, or personality. When you say you'd be afraid your character as an individual doesn't matter, you are refering to the mechanical individuality of the character; but in a more narrative-focused game the decisions and actions of each single character shape the overall story and experience more than whether that character gets a +2 or +4 to a saving throw. A thief with a heart of gold from a humble background will behave very differently when themselves being targeted by urchin pickpockets than a greedy catburglar who is strictly in the business of filling their pockets, no matter who suffers for it - and it is these deciding narrative moments these house rules are meant to lead to more quickly per session, at the expense of mechanical detail. I don't fully understand the criticism on losing control of your character with the house rules presented here, on the contrary: the player facing combat gives the player MORE rolls, and therefore fewer chances for the DM to fudge, should you be allergic to that. A thing I just realized is how "arbitrary" is usually negatively connotated, though a DM is exactly that, an arbiter, a judge. Maybe we as a community should move to haphazard or capricious to describe unwanted, unexpected or incomprehensible DM adjucation.
While I can't speak directly for PDM's game itself as I've never played in it, I can defend the narrative style and say that it's not nearly as disempowering as you might think. I realize that for some those that are used to the wargamey chess game, it can feel very disempowering to take away all the grid squares. But with the loss of the chess game, you get a ton of narrative freedom. It does require a good narrative DM of course, but you'll be rewarded for good plays in the narrative. Back in the OSR days it wasn't just throwing perception skill at everything. You'd be probing with a 10 ft pole, tapping walls looking for hollow spots, opening chests from the side to avoid a dart trap and so on. And if you played during those days, the modern rules-hard styles felt very constraining. In many cases it was more about player ingenuity than just having the right ability on your character sheet to solve the problem. Most modern DMs wouldn't have any idea how to rule on a PC using a 10 ft pole or all the other manner of crazy ideas OSR-style PCs come up with. Hell if anything, I feel like the narrative thief is a lot more interesting, because the modern incarnation is just "make a perception check, and then a disable device check to open locks or disarm traps." That to me is very boring. You're basically just tossing dice at problems hoping they go away. Really I don't have trouble with either style and think both work well, really I feel like the problem comes in when DMs rule inconsistently, sometimes making rigid wargamey rulings and other times making narrative common sense rulings.
I don't have a problem with narrative DMing, and I don't think that more mechanically heavy roleplaying means that the roleplay has to stop or that problemsolving goes out the window. The main problem I have, and the main place that I see loss of control, is the emphasis on game pacing and dramatic tension at the expense of character choice or player control. For example using 5e D&D as a basis, mechanically the only repercussion for using a longbow without proficiency is a lack of the proficiency bonus. I've been in games where we decided to ambush a ferryboat on a river. We had longbows for every party member regardless of class because we knew that they had a range of 150/600 feet and that even if you were taking non proficient shots at disadvantage that ship was stuck following the rivers current and couldn't just turn around easily because we had scouted the terrain beforehand. From a narrative perspective that combat had essentially no dramatic tension to it because the people guarding the ferry were trapped, if they tried to jump off and swim we had answers for it, if they simply tried to hide on the boat we had the option of stopping the ship and waiting them out. As a player I'd be incredibly frustrated if a narrative focused DM invented a new problem to insert dramatic tension into a moment where the players set themselves up for success- were there should be no tension because they planned and executed. If the DM said "No your mage can't use a longbow because they aren't proficient" I'd understand if they physically couldn't pull it back and they were as restricted with every other type of strength based requirement- but if it was just to force the party to insert their characters and split up based on ability I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't be a fan of requirements and limitations being inserted or removed based on rule of cool or narrative tension. I want consistency and a structural foundation that allows creativity to exist. Because without a structural stability- whether that comes from a firm rules system or a narrative DM that is impartial and consistent, then you can't really be creative because every situation is adjudicated based on whim. When drama and pacing take paramount importance over consistency and worldbuilding is where I really have a problem with things. So when the mentality is "whats the right answer- it doesn't matter make a call and keep the game moving" or "tell me what you want your spell to do and I'll tell you what it does this time." Then i need a huge amount of trust in that DM that he's not running things just to keep the story engaging at the expense of knowing I can actually influence situations and I'm interacting with a real world.
@@RemedialHappyMan I feel like most of the things you are afraid of happening when using PDM's house rules are not really side effects of the rules in and of themselves, but boil down to an inconsistent or even antagonistic DM who can't gauge or doesn't prioritize the engagement of their players. When you say "without a structural stability- whether that comes from a firm rules system or a narrative DM that is impartial and consistent, then you can't really be creative because every situation is adjudicated based on whim", you seem to imply that EITHER firm rules OR an impartial and consistent DM is sufficient to ensure the stability you crave, but I submit that the DM is head and shoulders more important to the "stability" of a game than the rules system. Remember, even if the players think they can "beat the DM", plan for every eventuality, the DM could in theory deus ex machina the hell out of a situation and just make all that planning obsolete, totally rules legal, because they are the DM - although a very bad one. When DMs use that power simply to thwart the players' plans and make them feel miserable and defeated, it doesn't matter whether they obey every RAW, FAQ and errata or not - they are a bad DM and will probably ruin every table, no matter the game system. The moment you accept that a good DM is ON YOUR SIDE and trying to tell your characters' stories as compellingly as possible, players shouldn't feel restricted by fewer rules, but empowered to do what brings the most fun to the table, regardless of numbers on character sheets. A question on your ferry ambush example: When you say "from a narrative perspective that combat had essentially no dramatic tension to it", why was that so, and how long did you play out that combat with "no tension to it"? And was it still fun? If you planned the ambush so well that there was literally absolutely no possibility of another outcome (the ambushed have no ranged weapons, no magic users, no emergency escape plans, no backup?), do you really need to play out 20-60 minutes of game time and x combat rounds to wait until the dice "decided" you decimated them? Or would you rather that the DM describes or even lets YOU as players describe what exactly happened, how you heroically stopped the escaping despot and his retinue and brought them to justice as a reward for your incredibly solid plan (that probably took as long as an actual combat to come up with), and then get on with the story? When a scene has *literally* no tension, only one possible outcome - why play it? Just to roll dice for the sake of rolling dice?
@@PatchedUpMusic I definitely think you're right in that an antagonistic DM can easily just circumvent a rules system. It's within their right to change any circumstance they want and they can always justify it after- in fact they never need to justify it. They're the DM and what they say happens happened. There was no dramatic tension because the outcome was pretty much pre-determined, no characters were at any risk, success was pretty much guaranteed. It took maybe 50 minutes to play out and I still think it was fun because it was a few precious moments to see characters come to life. I can say my character is a dexterous fighter who is a good archer- but if we just narratively played it out and cut through the ambush I'd just be saying things- it feels like when the dice fall and you get to add those modifiers its a statistical confirmation that gives you the greenlight to roleplay something and say "yes this actually happened- I didn't just say it, the rules that we use to adjudicate the world confirmed it." It's silly but it adds credence to adult make believe in the same way that the DM making a name up for an NPC on the fly feels less real than if he had it written down before hand. He's literally making up the NPC in both cases but the dice falling, and the name being written down somehow magically hack the perception that "these things are real and codified" even though I know that's silly. To me the story of the game is what happens at the table when everyone is playing their characters. I still remember roleplaying an unplanned moment where our characters were writing our wills and it got me to confess to another character and it lead to a huge roleplaying moment that felt real. However in regards to narrative plots that the DM is weaving I'd rather roleplay cooking sausage around the campfire while rotating watches than discover who murdered the lords niece. I'm not a beer and pretzels tactical player- I love roleplaying and having complex characters but I want a simulated world far more than I want a dramatic narrative. If we play for 8 hours wandering the wilderness and just never happen to roll on a wilderness table that puts us in any dramatic situations then that makes the game feel more real than if the DM interjects a dramatic moment just because nothing is happening. Sometimes literally nothing happens, the weather is clear skies, and there's nothing to do but march and enjoy the peace.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thank you for the video! I find a lot of places online, not just your comment section, have the "why are you trying to change the rules" mentality. I get frustrated with people who say "if you like older editions then go play them", and "maybe D&D isn't the system you want to play". I really like D&D 5e, but there's a few things I want to add or borrow from Pathfinder 2e or other editions of the game. This video is so right in that the only permission anyone needs to use house rules is their players enjoying the game.
My only problem with the spell failure system as described here is that there are already defensive saving throws built in to so many spells anyway, and I can imagine a player feeling really cheated, especially at lower levels, if his roll succeeds only to be negated by a saving throw. Seems like in those cases you would need to use one or the other, modifying the spell's "roll for success" target as appropriate for the adversary.
I feel I should point out that Constitution is also still valuable in "Harcore Mode" because you can make a DC 10 "Grit Your Teeth" check to spend hit dice during combat or when rest isn't an option, presumably at the cost of an action. Arguably, this makes Constitution just as important as ever. I think it's a brilliant alternative to just adding CON to HP up front.
How do you handle saving-throws with roll-to-cast? Seems like, if you keep saving throws, it disincentivizes players from casting any spell that allows a target to roll a saving-throw.
My guess is saving throws are completely replaced by the roll-to-cast rule. To affect the target, simply roll to succeed. If the players are targeted by a spell, the player-facing rules would mean they roll to avoid it.
What about other RPG systems other than D&D? Such as GURPS, storyteller, the SWD6. Is there any other system you enjoy and would like to suggest to players looking for something different?
At a certain point you realize that every action resolution mechanic can be reduced to percentiles and most people tend to prefer d20 roll high to d100 roll low. The core mechanic of that basic "d20" system is the language he's speaking in since the 3.x/OGL movement was so incredibly revolutionary and influential...but these insights can be ported over to any system as long as it involves dice rolls.
A Huge High Five to PDM for your signature ending...class is back in session. lol Anyway, I think we've heard most of these ideas over the course of your videos. Nice to see them in one place. But more than that, I like the idea that you discussed one of them that your still contemplating showing that these rules can be refined and detailed out. Nothing is set in stone if another or better idea comes along. You have the best Dungeons and Dragons channel anywhere. Agree or Disagree with your talking points...you make us think and strive to better the/our game. Always look forward to Thursday. And another Huge High Five to your friend Veronica, a true hero...praying for her safety and thanking her for her efforts. Yes, I'm stealing this, but can't think of anyone who deserves it more...PDM and Veronica...May all your rolls be 20's as well. Cheers!!
Thank you so much for this long, very kind, very encouraging post. It's very flattering, because there are so many great D&D channels. Please share DungeonCraft wherever you can so we can grow. Cheers!
Not really a big fan of 5e but while I was running it I implemented a house rule that inspiration could be acquired up to 5 points and spent thusly: 1 = standard inspiration effects 3 = one automatic success/hit 5 = one automatic critical success/hit This provided plenty of incentive to role-play and remedied what I've always hated in gaming- that universal law that says when the player delivers the coolest line of the campaign but rolls lousy on the follow-through thus ruining their shining moment. Running an OSR clone, I created my own magic system similar to yours: no spell slots, cast whenever but use a d12 and require the player to roll higher than the spell's level (I have modifiers on a chart of which they have copies). I like this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that those long, intricate and complex spells are just that much harder to keep straight when under serious pressure.
Thanks for sharing! Instead of inspiration, I recommend DM Scotty's (from DM's Craft) Luck Dice. Once you play with it, inspiration is like watching paint dry. It solves the very problem you describe--whiffing the shining moment. I don't get a kick-back. I just love it and recommend it everyone. At $1 it's a bargain: www.questgivers.com/product.php?p=20
this popped up in my feed the same day as I found out that one of the P2e options one of my players wanted was an updated version of the P1e ability that came out a year after I had house-ruled it into existence in a campaign from over a decade ago. also had class-independent archetypes before they showed up in books. someone keeps reading my house rule notes.
Re: critical spell failure. Do you require the roll on all magic, including cleric spells? What about spells that already have an attack roll (shocking grasp)?
I been in a few games were wizards had two Hp pools. first pool.) stander 1d4hp for falling and melee damage. second pool.) to resist spell effect damage, 4d6 per level. Reason, wizards train in slapping each other around with Fire Balls & Lightning Bolts. And everyone else slaps each other with sticks and swords. Funny thing is, in games like these, the Dice takes on a life of their own. OMG how things can go wrong ! L.O.L.!
To be honest, i do not understand your player-facing combat rule. Attack saving throws make more sense to me. Roll a d20, add your armor bonus, try to meet or beat 15.
I go with a simple xp progression. Level1-4, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, per level, by level 20, it's 19000-20000 for max level. For giving out xp, lower levels, I go with 250 for a section, end of mini adventure or session, if 3000 xp are given, they get two levels. At higher levels, sections can be worth 500 to 2500 xp. It depends on how often the group plays together.
Ive noticed my Players rarely ever read the rules so I tend to steal mechanics I like from other games to put in whatever game I'm running. Then I get to use all my favourite mechanics. My favourite house rule is characters get contacts at charcter creation, they only need to come up with them when they need a contact for x. That way they dont have useless contacts.
I agree with all of this except the rolling to cast every spell, it's too big a change for 5e to work without making spellcasting too unreliable AND it goes against my ethos for "guys we're rolling the dice WAY too much". Rolling the dice isn't necessary a lot of the time, you don't need to roll a dice for everything in the game, most of the time your decisions should just work as expected. Like you don't need to roll for every jump, every climb, every NPC interaction. I'd have rolling to cast spells if you otherwise couldn't cast a spell, because you hadn't prepared it or were out of spell slots.
Thanks again for the great ideas. I love houseruling D&D. Dragon Magazine (and 1e AD&D with all it's quirks) was a group test crucible back in the day and I remember adding HERO POINTS from Dragon 118. They were a knock-off of the TOP SECRET Fame and Fortune points from 1979.
I am a fan of your creativity and designs. Some of your "homebrew" ideas are great. Thanks for putting your knowledge and advice out here for our community.
I love player facing defense, but hate the math. I know it is just 20-AC (with mods) +2 but it is still math. I may just try having the players roll AS THE ORC fighting against them (while they pray for a low roll).
I'm usually against HR because I think they change a lot balance: For example CON is meant to differentiate pg HP... For example DEX is meant to differentiate pg Initiative... But I understand that FUN has a priority. Anyway I'm really happy that you shared the "facing combat" rule. I love it, because it doesn't change the math, involves the player more and reduce the work for the DM. In short you are letting the player rolls with a complementar d20, setting an equivalent DC to their rolls. U can use this formula to speed up mental calculation: DC=22-DELTA where DELTA = AC - Hit Bonus (When monsters attack PG; u can see it as PG trying to dodge) where DELTA = DC - Save bonus (When monster try to resist spells; u can see it as PG trying to hit the monster)
I think too much HP gain is probably my biggest complaint about D&D. What do you think of switching to gaining a smaller fixed number plus CON mod at levels after 1 or after 4. For instance, wizards and sorcerers could gain 1+CON mod per level, rogues, monks, bards, etc. gain 2+CON mod, fighters, rangers, paladins 3+CON mod, and 4+CON mod for a barbarian?
Initiative: flip coin or 1d4 even gos clockwise odds gos counter clockwise. Depending on which direction rock,paper,scissors to player left or right of DM winner either player or enemies gos first. Takes 3 seconds, example start of every round (or combat) DM rolls 1d4 rolls 3, looks player to the right DM throws Rock, Player throws paper meaning that round of combat players go first counter clockwise around table followed by enemies. Once everyone gers used to it gos pretty fast add randomness. DM could pick random player for rock,paper,scissors for even more randomness and no math.
Ok but the rule about letting the player roll to see if the enemy hits is really genious. Im definitelly going to try that with my group of new players
I've been using the no initiative rule for a few weeks now. My players love it. The mages also enjoy rolling on their spells. I got both of these ideas from your channel. Awesome stuff.
Instead of tit-for-tat combat strikes, engaging in melee becomes a skill contest between two or more opponents. When attacking an unaware target, it becomes an uncontested skill check. - No AC; armour absorbs damage (plate is impervious to piercing/slashing attacks except where there is a STR bonus). Each time enough damage is dealt to cause actual HP loss to the target, the armour suffers -1 to its reduction value. - DEX mod is used for all combat manoeuvres. STR damage mod is only used for melee or throwing weapons. - Hit location is rolled at same time as damage die. Helmets provide separate damage reduction from body armour. Shields do not provide damage reduction but a defense modifier instead, since once a successful hit has been made it is assumed the shield has been bypassed. - Target losing 50% of remaining HP suffers a debilitating injury. At 75% loss that injury becomes a permanent, lingering injury even after full healing. - Characters only advance 9 levels, and these align with spell levels for casters. - Any character can wear armour but rogues and casters make checks using their primary skills at disadvantage when so doing. Skills are generalised and fall into Primary skills (minimum +2 proficiency bonus) and Secondary skills (+1). Any skill can be improved as a perk of gaining an experience level (max +5). - Skill checks including combat rolls are 2d10 (bell curve). Natural 20 and natural 2 are critical/auto hits/misses. Roll 3d10 and take highest/lowest two to factor advantage/disadvantage. - Spellcasting requires a skill check. Graduating scale of spell efficacy from spectacular success (unexpected benefit) to devastating failure (self-inflicted injury or negative divine consequences).
Only the 7th and 9th doesn't suck IMO. Everything in this list slows the game down by A LOT. In RPG, less is more... That means you can always add complexity by giving them special items and custom spells so the less complex the rules (which is Static Complexity) the more you can give complex gear (which is Adaptative/Dynamic Complexity), so every game is different from each other, even with the same classes and races.
I was working on a homebrew system based on this concept and I quickly realized two things: (1) just adding [# of sides on the attack die]/2 (rounded down) to the defense modifier...this would be a +10 on a d20, +5 for my d10 based homebrew...drastically speeds up the combats (even if your system is based around degrees of success or failure based on the difference between the result and the DC); (2) in systems where combat is based on contested checks it comes down to how many times per round a character can roll a die (or add the average roll to their modifier if you want static defense/AC) and the entire combat system will focus on "action points" and ganging up on opponents (which is realistic but might not be how you want combats to work).
I used to love hit locations. I realized some things with it though... it slows down player narration as they basically have to wait for the a bunch of dice to stop rolling before they know (in the case of your system) 1. Did I hit? 2. Where was it, head to foot to fingers? 3. Was it sufficient to get through the armour? 4. Would it cause serious wounding? All before they can smoothly narrate even how the attack begins. It seems like people that narrate or rp their attacks generally start with a general area that the attack is going to move towards ie "i punch him in the face" "i bring my axe arching down" with hit locations being randomized you can get "I punch him in the face." Finish with the dice saying "nah, you hit his knee." This isnt a dig on it... as a DM i love brutal combat that leaves scars and takes limbs off... i feel that your system aims for that. Its very D&D 2.5e Skills and Powers age. Taking your PCs hand off with narration alone can anger a player for sure. If you put it to the dice you have the chance of hamds coming off without the chance of seemingly being a 'mean DM'. I also like having armour that is a damage reduction and is better against certain forms of attack.... but... i have learned to just use common sense with somethings. Full plate vs a whip shouldn't work well... but lets take a Dungeon World style example.... PC: "I lashout with my whip." Rolls a hit DM: " As the knight moves into your range , your expert placement sends your whip lashing out under the edge of its helmet snapping into thier windpipe." You can narrate chinks in the armour... I hope your system works for your table. I was/am a heavy homebrewer of rules... i just recently switched the Dungeon World system that seems better able to handle it than say 5e.
@@MatthewLeLievre Good points there. This set of homebrews is something I've been working on during the lockdown. I drew some stuff from both RuneQuest and Hackmaster, as well as PDM's own ideas. I don't know the Dungeon World system but I'll look into it.
It is a fascinating idea to think about running the whole schoolsystem on D&D :oD You can teach almost everything through RPG-Gameplay.... MATH, LANGUAGE, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, RELIGION, SOCIALOLGY,. Storytelling, Dramaturgy, Acting, Strategy.... As a teacher you should create a concept for a pure RPG-Elementary-School for Kids
Regarding "Player Facing Combat": Forgive me if this sounds hopelessly naive, but what if players ALSO rolled d20 for the monsters at the same time they rolled d20 for their own hits? Couldn't you leave out Initiative this way, too, and then just let whichever of them "hit" deal damage? Players could also roll for the PC or the NPC dealing damage. If BOTH score a hit, then whichever of them rolls a higher damage roll (also rolled simultaneously) inflicts dmg first. It would speed things up, be more exciting for the players. I guess if there are NPC combatants not paired off (because a mob of NPCs outnumber PC's), then the DM could roll for them. What am I missing? What are the pros/cons?
Many years ago, a former group decided to try playing DnD with Mage Rules. That was pretty fun back then. Fast forward and across the country I joined a new group playing 3.5 which was very similar to that previous experience. - Gotta luv trying new mechanics
I came up with a rule, in case you want Constitution to matter more in your game. You add your constitution modifier to your hit points only once. If your constitution modifier changes, ajust your hit point maximum accordingly. Vitality rule: You have vitality points that represent your life force and how much mortal wounds you can take before you can't endure anymore. You vitality points on level 1 equals your Constitution value. If your Constitution value increases you get that same amount in extra vitality points (1 extra constitution point = 1 extra vitality point). Whenever your character drops to 0 hit points you lose one vitality point (you still must roll death saves). As optional rules, losing vitality points may also give your character a scar. Special attacks that lowers your hit point maximum (like the Succubus/Incubus kiss) also drain one vitality point. If any massive damage rule is being used the DM might also request a CON saving throw (DC 15) to avoid losing vitality points in that situation. If a character loses all his vitality points he dies and can not be resurrected. Example: Tordin, the dwarf, has a constitution value of 16 on level one. Which means he has 16 vitality points and he gets +3 hit points. In his adventures he dropped to 0 hit points 12 times and has only 4 vitality points left. At level 4 however Tordin decides to add 2 points in constitution (total = 18). That gives him 2 extra vitality points (total = 6) and increases his hit point maximum by 1 point (since his modifier went from +3 to +4). Feel free to alter this rule as you want ^_^ PS: If a rule like this already exists, I'm sorry, I'm just ignorant to that fact. I'm not trying to take credit for anything.
#3 Player Facing Combat... Never heard of that idea before. I play RIFTS which includes dodging and you Rolling a D20 to avoid being hit, but it works as an oppose roll (higher one wins, ties defender win) makes combat last forever lol. But this Players Facing Combat... I like it... To bad it doesn't work with the simultaneous attacks to get rid of initiative. If you have 6 players the first one will resolve his action and then proceed to play with his pen and doodle or knit (for my female players lol).
The key takeaway IMO is that there is no perfect system. But I agree that ICRPG and Five Torches Deep comes close, with some of the Dungeon Adventuring rules from Old School Essentials and the spell failure / corruption rules from DCC.
House Rules MUST exist. As long as DM and Players understand and agree beforehand. It's a game - that has been changed by the publishers a million times. Nothing is set in concrete. It's meant to be FUN! In my games, a 1 is NOT always a 'miss' and a 20 is NOT always a 'hit', for example. I have other variants.
I think rolling to cast spells only really works when not using spell slots. The "risk" becomes the cost of the spell. I'm thinking like Runequest based games like Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer...and in these casting spells is a skill the PC can get better at. In the base rules (most?) combat related spells already rely on a roll to be successful. So does a fire bolt requires a roll to cast and another to hit? If the setting is (very) low magic, maybe that works. But "default" D&D is high magic imo. I just realised something else. I don't really finding rolling dice "fun". Sure randomness can add some tension, but I play to RP and to solve problems and DM players who are the same. imo the tension should come from the stakes and emotional investment, not a plastic polyhedron. In fact I think a lot of DMs rely too much on dice to add tension. As a player I've flatly refused to roll Perception when asking what my character sees by glancing in a room. "Assume I roll a 1. What does my character see." Back in 1e we used to use a critical hit system where, if you rolled a 20 to hit you'd roll again. If you rolled an 18-19 on the second roll, it was double damage. If the second roll was a 20 was an instant kill. As the players are (obviously) playing the PCs, probability capped out PC life expectancy to generally be level 10 or so (lower for fighter types). So it almost became a race to get Raise Dead before you got critted by an enemy.
House rule I encountered back in the day: Natural 20 crit hits.....opponent must make death save. On failure death, if they save they take double damage.
I was actually going to ask why you were playing D&D, but that's because I know how much you love Warhammer; why are you playing hamburger when you could be playing filet mignon? But I think I get it: You have limited time and play with a wide diversity of (often new) players. D&D doesn't have the depth of other games, and you've streamlined it even further. That seems ideal for your situation. Very cool. Good for you.
Back in high school I had random spell failure chart. I made it real goofy because I wanted to add some levity and humor to game. I don't remember all failures but some were PC gender would switch or 1d8 cows would appear. Just silly stuff made for some funny encounters.
I will re-do my house rules at the same time every year. This means you watch every video, and I am very grateful. Coming up: running player-facing combat, my review of Warhammer FRP, and the story of the worst game I've ever run. Stay tuned!
I think that I still prefer the Attack-as-Initiative system, because I don't think I *quite* get player-facing combat. I get that the orc who has to roll a (natural) 15 or better to hit has six number that he can hit, but I don't know how you reliably calculate that if the player and the monster both have bonuses. You certainly cannot do it at the table in less time than it takes to look up a complicated spell in the phb. But also, why are all these crybabies accusing you of hating combat? Why does "boardgame" initiative do except make the combat LESS exciting? If you can get in and out of combat quickly, then the party can fight MORE combats. In the event that you want a long, epic battle, then shouldn't you want a single, itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny, pathetic combat round to be over with quickly, so that you can get on to the remaining 20 rounds it will take for the PCs to plow through the WAVES and WAVES of enemies you have planned? Don't you want to do something big without keeping the entire game group up past DAWN?
That part about Player Facing Combat melted my brain. See, I'm a 3.X player (that switched to Pathfinder over time) and there was an optional rule (I can't remember if it was from Unearthed Arcana or the DMG) where you could have your players roll AC. Seeing as we were already quite high level we switched to this system to add a little variability in the results (and as a DM I thought they would like the option to roll for defense rather than just having a static number, because who doesn't love rolling dice) and never looked back, but lately I've been using the group initiative variant among other things in order to speed up combat, and I was considering dropping that specific rule to minimize the math... And I never even thought of doing it this way. This is brilliant. And I'm dumb.
How much experience does a player need to dungeon master well? I have been in the board game hobby a long time (22years), teaching and running board games is something I’d like to think I do well, but DMing is another animal altogether. As a DM you teach how to play, but even more, you tell a story and help the party experience an adventure. I would love to DM but feel like there is so much in this huge game I don’t know about yet. I have been playing DND for about a year, it’s the game I have been looking for in board games but didn’t know it. “The Dungeon Craft Way” that you teach makes even more sense to me than straight 5e. Thank you for what you do! On your recommendation I even picked up Index Card RPG. It is very clear to me how house rules or variants can add exciting flair, speed or intrigue to a game. Should a first time DM use house rules? It is very intimidating to begin as a DM, how much of the DND do you have to know? What are key pitfalls to avoid? I don’t want my first effort to explode halfway through and end up a poor experience for players.
I like milestones as they focus players on the mission(s) they are undertaking and meaningful achievements. I think, in part, murder hoboism is partially due to XP from combat (and back in the day, treasure). How characters advance is a message to players and should reinforce how the majority of the table (implicitly or explicitly) wants the game to run. I'm also a fan of XP for player drive subplots etc. One thing though, I never give characters rewards for things players do and I give the same XP for all characters. I like parties which act as a team, and don't like the competitiveness permanent rewards for players entail. imo Advantage works fine for that.
Hit points are placebos in my game. My players don't know; I let them subtract and add as much as they want; but they all have 4 hit points. Full health Fresh; advantage. One Hit Tired. Second hit they are winded, superficial scratch; narrate they might be in trouble. Third hit, bleeding; trigger fight or flight. Fourth injured, disadvantage. Next dead. If they survive they will have a permanent debuff of their choice. Scar, a limp, lost an eye... they choose and narrate what happens to their character. Simply divide whatever ridiculous amount of hit points they have by 5. Done every single attack from everything deals 1/5 or more if its a big monster. They won't even notice... and by the time they do you can ditch hit points entirely.
So watching this and having heard about the old "gold for XP" system has made me really feel like introducing a "Goals" system the next time I run Pathfinder. I'm way too attached to the Experience Points method of progression, for reasons I do not understand. So I would just make it worth a flexible amount of xp dependant on how risky and character driven the goal was. I'm still running through options of how to do it, but I'm thinking I might set the options out for Short-term and Mid-term goals to be written out for a boat load of Exp, and then during sessions players could make up two goals for smaller amounts. I'm definitely considering using the slow track for gaining levels so that goals will be a meaningfully large addition to their progression without over levelling them.
Love your take on the concept of house rules and expectations of the designers. They make a fun game we enjoy, but are also regular people working their very real job, with real constraints and deadlines. Also that you bring up that they have different house rules on their own! The individual designers! Showing they are not a hive mind but people building a game with all the compromises that entails. I think it is good to acknowledge that they likely have a good design grasp, and therefore their rules are likely thought out. However, that does not mean the game is exactly crafted for you or your group. So hacking the game to slightly steer it in the direction you want is brilliant!
I have my own system for level advancement. The best example is like a classic Zelda game: Characters have a base set of skills that doesn’t really change (a 12 on a d20 is a success for any skill that fits their history/profession), a couple of signature items that will grow as they accomplish more things. The only leveling they do is hit points. Everyone starts with 16, and they add 1 hp to their hp total after they have taken a cumulative of their current Max hp in damage. So if they have 16 hp and they take 4 damage 4 times across 3 encounters ( they likely will have healed between these encounters, but that doesn’t affect the cumulative tracking of hp loss for advancement) they will add 1 hp to their maximum which will now be 17 hp. This accounts for being more accustomed to taking a hit, so if you always hang out in the back shooting a bow/casting spells your hp maximum will never change, but frontliners will get better and better at taking hits, acting while injured and shrugging off lower damage injuries in battle.
I am from Russia and I am not a native speaker. Back in the day, translations weren't existed beyond fan translated core books, so people had to use English books. I still remember how I struggled to create my first character - a 1 lvl rogue in dnd 3.5 - it took around 1 week with a dictionary. Yeah, dnd and marvel movies definitely contributed a lot to my English education.
Removing the CON bonus to HP on both sides is quite tempting. Ever since 3rd edition, monster's have had far too much health. Which in turn hurts fighters and blaster wizards because their output was and still is not up to the task of chewing through all that health. The extra deadly nature of combat for the characters is a nice side benefit. Also makes the barbarian's d12 and the wizard's d6 stick out more.
I am 29 and find you infinitely insightful, sir. Ha I like doing my best at whatever I do and you’re a great mentor for D&D. I absolutely adore the mvp idea. Also, I’ll ask my players after the recap where they want to sit based off the initiative they might possibly be in, in that particular session. I’m not going to comment on every video, thanking you for the ideas you’ve given me. If I say it once on the internet, I’ve said it a thousand million times. Thank you, professor.
Very nice video, one of your best. One thing to add is that the WotC folks have to create a game for the widest possible audience; that's Hasbro's sales / marketing imperative. DM's have the freedom to create the best possible game for their group. This is a huge inherent advantage hobbyist DM's have over corporate Hasbro. Thanks for encouraging the creative, independent, dynamic spirit of the early days of the hobby!
D&D was a game built by, and for, adults experienced in gaming. You can’t have a good time with your elementary school age kids who lack a strong maths ability to crunch serious numbers. You have to house rule once you’ve seen them wander away from the combat because it just took too long. I enjoy the crunch but nothing is more boring than rolling a 2 and waiting for everyone else to a 7 year old.
About initiative, i have been playing the RPG KULT: Divinity Lost for many years (tester) and it does not have a initiative, the character that is supposed to act first just acts first and so on. Never been a issue. Example: The character walks into a room and the DM asks if you pay attention to the dark corner, wich the character never does because it is reading a book - the assassin acts first. So now we do not use initiative in DnD :) Works as a charm.
I have a few house rules. And everyone should. What rule I don’t like is AC. Don’t know what to do with it, but I know I don’t like it. Also, I work in a really laboratory, and I’ve realized something, dnd comments is worse then a peer review on a journal or abstract. But man change initiative in dnd, wholly crap, I got take a shot of bourbon before I read. Tip of the hat.
One of my favorite XP methods we called, "Begging for experience." At the end of a session or at some stop point, we would all receive a base level of experience, then one by one we would go around and explain what we did "in character" that was exceptional or demonstrated good role play for that character. Playing well in character, and pushing or capitalizing on the character class, role, alignment, backstory, and so on earned experience. We would cheer each other on, remind each other of their character's good and bad deeds. It was great way to recap a session with a bit of comraderie wrap up the fun.
Player facing combat. Like in Cypher system. I find it bit more boring on DM. And that it bit removes that feeling you are fighting outside enemy. Like this it seems you are battling yourself.
"He's getting his brother's room; his brother's joining the Army."
As a veteran myself, I wish your son good fortune and clear skies.
Clear skies. That won't happen if he's infantry 🤣
@@dkbibi It means I hope he doesn't have to train in the rain. Basic NEVER stops but rainy days are pretty rough.
As they say... "Embrace The Suck!"
Thank you for your kind words and for you service to our country.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 As a former infatryman, " If it ain't raining, we ain't ttraining!"
"People assume that the employees of Wizards of the Coast are walking around the offices wearing lab coats and they have degrees in game-ology... they don't. They're working in cubicles to deadlines, they're average people just like you and me." - guy with Professor Dungeon Master nameplate behind him.
Shout out to Veronica, the real hero out there on the front lines and the realest wizard casting fireballs at every available opportunity!!! I cannot wait to play again with my D&D family soon!
We're close now. Late June/early July.
More like a life domain cleric granting them bonus heals, but yes 👍
Thank God for real heros. 🙏 you are make great content. 👍
I don't think I've ever played a game where the GM hadn't included a house rule!
Yep.
House rule,
1st-level wizard gets initiative and amazingly bets the 12th-level fighter in full plate armor. Strength / Dex Reflex check. Roll touch attack vs AC:12
End result, the newbie wizard " hip toss " the warlord over the railing to a 60ft drop into the horse trough.
Even a party who all have never played any rpg's before include house rules in their games too.
Whether that be intentionally or not.
There's just not enough Thursdays in the week. I've re watched almost every video this week I think.
I rewatch older episodes frequently as well. Before I found this channel I used to follow six or seven different D&D channels pretty regularly. After I found this one that became only 3 including this one.
I only watch this (and koibu's stream vods because he does a live show like this )
It would be so cool to see my two favorite DMs play a game together
@@TheShadowKarl Thank you. Please share it so the channel can grow.
That's kind of you to say and inspires me to keep going. As we speak I'm photographing minis for the episode on City Adventures. It takes 12 hours to make an episode, so one Thursday is all I can handle!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I appreciate the effort. Really is the number one channel for d&d in my opinion. People call your ideas "radical". But like youve said, many homebrew rules become rules proper in the future. Not to mention how GG said rules are a guideline. Your vids and runehammers got me into d&d and me and my son love it.
I'm actually young enough that dnd 5e is the system first I've played. I'm frankly completely pissed off that the starter set doesn't give new dms nearly enough to have an idea of how to do their job. Even the dmg is more like a collection of optional rules and lore than a guide on how to dm.
Your videos are kind of the reason I'm switching to ftd and we're having the first game next week.
I'm in the same boat. WotC is really bad at teaching you how to play their game. Fortunately a lot of indy/OSR RPGs do have propper GM guides in their systems.
4e had a better starter set! The 5e starter set doesn't even give you a blank character sheet!
Thank you. I love the D&D starter set but it's a bIG game with so many facets. Glad I can help you on your journey.
the “rules” are not the “game”
For how to prepare sessions and master games, I highly recommend Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master:
www.dmsguild.com/product/251431/Return-of-the-Lazy-Dungeon-Master
And Scott "Angry GM" Rehm's Game Angry:
www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280384/Game-Angry-How-to-RPG-The-Angry-Way
The Fun-gineers at WOC work hard, consult the bones, and study ancient lore to create a completely flawless game system- it cannot be changed - until 6E - then it can change again
Until they release a new rulebook yes
@@elgatochurro yes, that was indeed the joke
Professor DM: My son is joining the army
My brain: His son is joining the Warrior's Guild and is on his way to earn the Fighter Archetype.
Horray for the US PetroDollar Warriors!
@@earl528 His sister is an chemical engineer for an oil company. She may be pulling the strings.
#tinfoilhat #illuminaticonfirmed
" cough, cough, cough," They Wayne just because your parents named you " Bruce " does not mean you have to play a Detective in every RPG you play. Ok got that " Batman." .. !
Cool thing is, my old buddy Wayne did become a police detective by the time he was 27 years old in 2007.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Decades ago, I worked for Mobil's Strategic Planning Dept. One project I was asked to do was a 'What If" Scenario on "What If War broke out in the Middle East".
For magic, I've a house ruled spell check to determine how successful the spell is, but since the wizard is risking magical corruption, I've decided that the result is never "nothing happens." Magic always happens; it's just not always what the wizard intended, or upon the person they targeted.
Tell your son, "thank you for your service!" (hand salute)
Thank you, Michael.
The Hungry, Hungry, Hippo line was just perfect. Thank you for being you, good Sir.
Hey professor DM,
Do you have any opinions on Fate RPG and/or Accelerated? I feel like a lot of ideas that you propose in modding DnD e.g. lower amounts of hit points, zone based movement, a focus on the pure "roll this or higher and you pass", the awesome points that you can use to change the outcome of things that happen somewhat parallel fate points, levelling up not being very important. That, plus the extreme moddability and narrative focus of the system seems like it would be relatively ideal for your purposes. Maybe there's a video in it?
I've read Fate. My players would never accept the loss of the D&D d20 "engine." So here we are.
As a service member who started watching your videos to DM for shipmates while we were underway, best of luck to your son in the Army.
Now, real talk, where did you get that killer tie?
Thank you and thank you for your service.
Good luck to your son from a recently discharged Soldier. He's set up for success too, you'd be amazed how many one-shots I ran on slow days in the motor pool.
Thank you! I once had a friend who was stationed in a missile silo in Europe. They played D&D all the time! Thanks for your kind words and your service.
No hit points! Armor absorbs Damage until it breaks then we roll on a wounds table, loose hand, arm, leg eye or even die from shock.
You have 8-10 health points that wear down for each round you are poisoned, bleeding, burning and dazed when characters reach 0 they die.
Health healing comes from spiritual character in tuned with the divine. Success deepened on their good standing and devotion. A proper rest also restores health [burning, poisoning, dazed, bleeding].
Mental stability is effected when a characters takes a wounds hit. 0 mental stability character is now a babbling NPC. Perhaps becoming a villain.
Anyone can try anything - weapons, wands, stealth, climbing etc.
Characters don't get special attacks from a class [there are no classes], they get special attacks based on the weapon being using. Any character can try to use the special attack provided they have reflex points. All attacks are based on the dexterity modifier. [HCI - Hit Chance Increase]
Magic comes from a wand, rod or staves which hold a certain amount of charges. Each magic item is based on lightening, fire, water, frost, wind, earth etc. Any one can use them based on characters intelligence modifier.
Bards have 3 songs that can either peace, provoke or discordance a creature. Each turn the bard must re roll to see if they can maintain the song or become disrupted.
Ohh wait that is our house rules.
Seems a very deadly, rules lite, fast paced game
Could you further explain the armour/combat system?
@@federicoriva3592 Armor is rated based on durability having a max of 8 absorption [1=cloth, padded, leather, studded, ring, chain and 8 = plate]. There are 8 hit locations [1 =head, neck, hands, arms, chest, waist, legs, 8 = feet]. DMs rolls both a roll d20 and a d8 at the same time. If it hits we know the location and remove 1 from the durability. If there is no durability at that location then we roll on a D20 wounds table which looks like this 1-2 dead.... 3-4 permeant disability [limb loss, blind eye, shattered front teeth], 5-20 temporal [knock down etc].
At max armor character can take lots of hits because its 8 durability per hit locations. Mot of my players only have 3 durability in each location. Even if armor durability is 0 characters just need to clear a 1 or 2 on the wounds table and they are safe! If not then the rest of the party will have to dig a grave. I allow players to do their own roll for the wounds table. Nothing like seeing players rolls when their character needs it most. So much for hand picked lucky dice.
On the character sheet we have bubbles that we fill in for each piece of armor. So if you take a hit you erase one bubble. Works out nice and easy to manage.
Head: 00 00 00 00
Neck: 00 00 00 00
Hands: 00 00 00 00
For regular monsters ill just give traditional hit points and for boss monsters ill set some durability values for 4 zones. The Monster wounds table is 1-10 = death 11-18 creature shakes it off 19-20 creatures is enraged and gets an extra attack [or special attack]. We allow players to call target at -2 to an attack roll. My players enjoying hitting the neck repeatedly until the head dis attaches, I'm not sure what that is about. *rubs neck*.
Our game table consist of 6 player adventurers and 1 DM. It moves along pretty good and id say the thing I like about it from a DM stand point is hit location rolls. The hit location rolls tell me what is happening and then we get to let the story generate from that as well.
Hope that helps!
@@Mystic-realm Wow, very very nice
Thank you, I'll make sure to keep this message saved for future campaigns
Hope your players don't cut your head off😅😂
@@federicoriva3592 *gulp*. You're very welcome.
At first the players were shocked I didn't let them roll 4d6 [remove the weakest one] on character creation instead I let them re roll their 6s on the first round [lower is better in our game, easier for skill checks]. And then... there was no spot to put in the Hit Points. Shocked! Their mouths were wide open and one of them accidentally auto burped. lol. Now im the one auto burping.
We wish you good fortune in the adventures to come! ~ Frederick & Jennifer
Have you read any of the editions of Runequest?
I absolutely agree with your basic thesis. I've made changes to every game I've ever run and to my eye many of those changes have made the games better. (Some have made them actively worse and it's possible that some of my players might disagree with my assessment, but that's the risk you take.) If you and your players are happy, there's not a problem.
That said, be very careful with the changes you make. Depending on the game system you're using and the changes you make, it can be the case that unexpected or inobvious consequences may attend upon any change. While I often disagree with rules designers' decisions, they certainly spend more time than I do thinking about their games. And sometimes there are dependencies that are both crucial and not easy to see.
As to whether you're playing D&D? I'd say no, because your game is about as closely related to any published version of D&D as d20 Call of Cthulhu or (to use a much earlier example) Empire of the Petal Throne. This is not intended as a value judgement (not least because I haven't considered "D&D" as a label to be a selling point since the late '70s), just an issue of _truth_ in labeling. I would consider the game that you have described to be a heavily house-ruled descendant of D&D ... same genus, different species.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Doug. I agree about being careful when making changes. One rule can have a huge unintended effect on other rules. Cheers!
I am on a quest to collect all the house rules on RUclips - I have many of your videos in my collection - would you consider making a follow up to this video to share your current top 5, 5 more, or less well known house rules?
Yes. It's coming soon. Probably the fall (that's how far in advance DungeonCraft is produced).
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 wow that’s way ahead - looking forward to it 👍🏿
For decades my rules for spell casting is this. Your Intelligence (or Wisdom for clerics) forms the basis for your Craft (Arcane Casting) skill, which is a class skill bestowed automatically to the class. To successfully cast the spell, you roll equal or less than your Arcane Casting skill. Having to engage in melee combat can potentially breaks your concentration, if the character takes 1 > HP damage, the DM can assign a -1 to -3 negative modifier to being able to successfully cast the spell. Also a natural 1 indicates the spell backfires in some way (appropriate to the spell). Also I give prime requisite bonuses to spell memorisation - i.e. a mage with Int 9-12 has no bonus, Int 13-15 has +1 spell per spell level, Int 16-17 +2 bonus to spells per spell level etc...
As a side note, this can make for some interesting characters, because you can allow a perosn to spend Non-weapon proficiency skill slots to augment their skill to Craft (arcane casting)+1 or more. This along with weapon mastery allows you to develop a kind of hardened battle mages, which many of my players have been giddy to play.
"Why don't you just play with Duplos?!"
Adding Con Mod to hit point recovery could take the sting out of dropping the mod from total hit points.
Yep.
I’m a simple man. I see Deathbringer, I like the video.
"this is the company that makes Hungry Hungry Hippos".....and with that, PDM wins the Internet!
I'm a fan of the channel but I have to say I won't be using any of those house rules my groups seems to like the 5e rules the way they are with a crit table added
Jack Vance’s characters DID sometimes miscast spells, with disastrous effects. Check out the Dying Earth novel The Eyes of the Overworld, for example: "Cugel hastily consulted the workbook and saw that in error he had transposed a pair of pervulsions, thereby reversing the quality of the spell. . . . "
I have to confess I have never read the Dying Earth and I am ashamed to admit it.
This makes me think of using a house rule where the DM rolls secretly when you try to copy a spell into your spellbook, but instead of just failing you've copied it incorrectly and the first time you try to cast it something will go horribly wrong.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 You really, really need to fix that. Or at least read the RPG from Pelgrane, which catches the flavor of the setting nicely. I think you'll be surprised to find out how little the RPG hobby's idea of "Vancian casting" resembles the magic in Vance's actual books. No character of Vance's would dream of casting something as prosaically named as "Fireball" and the only people skilled enough to be capable of memorizing more than a handful of spells at once don't bother doing so, they rely on what amount to contracted overworld spirit servants to create Limited Wish like effects at will instead. Actual memorized fire-and-forget D&D-style spells are for the relatively young and inexperienced magicians (who might, at most, be able to carry 5-6 of them at once in their minds) or overconfident dabblers like Cugel (who usually come to a sticky end by botching a cast).
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Strongly recommended if & when you can find the chance, though I'm sure you may be tired of hearing that ;). It's kind of sad really though how badly vancian magic was butchered in it's conversion to the D&D rules we all know & love/hate. Way more dependence on magical items vs spells, way fewer spell slots ( I want to say in the 1st story that the arch mage had a grand total of ONE, since chromatic spray occupied his whole brain), along with explanation on WTH spells & 'slots' even are. A lot of times I wish more folks would go back to the books & try to better emulate what was there vs. going the more sadly tried & true route of 'vancian magic sucks'
Ah where would dnd rogues be without Cugel
You realize that your group is the exception, not the norm? I've never DMed or played in a group that glossed over the rules, and treated D&D as a casual pastime.
I've played for 35 years with dozens of groups and with the designers of D&D itself. They all play this way.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I've played since 1979. My first module was Keep on the Borderlands. My first character was a magic user with 2hp , a dagger and magic missile, and I survived. You actually played with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson?
DM rolling player death saves is still my favorite house rule. I actually had a player sweating from the suspense not knowing if my roll was a pass or fail.
I don't play D&D right now, but if I did this would definitely be a rule I'd implement at my table.
Thanks for talking the time comment. I love kittens! (I mean--who doesn't?)
I believe in openly rolling for anything the PCs would be able to perceive. I think your dying PC would at least be able to know they're making their saves or not. How about kicking unconscious players out of the room until their PCs regain consciousness?
@@Joshuazx PCs are unconscious when making Death Saves. How would they know they're dying or not? And kicking players out of the room while their PC is unconscious is liable to cause hurt feelings.
I liked this rule at first, but I changed my mind. One of my players made a good point, that they might have the right to roll a die that will outright kill them.
Alternatively, I adopted a different system to add tension to death saving throws from the Dungeon Coach RUclips channel. When players fail death saving throws they gain a level of exhaustion, and whenever a player goes down they start with a number of failed death saving throws equal to their level of exhaustion.
I think Adventurers League breeds resistance to (anyone) homebrewing. IMO it also constrains WotC in making some rule changes. I played AL for a bit and there were players that just didn't get why anyone would run a homebrew setting with some of their own rule and didn't even consider looking at UA because "what's the point?".
Could be.
If you can't handle being able to mod the rules to your group, you need to turn in your DM license. There is literally not a game on earth--board game, video game, ttrpg or active sport--where I haven't played a variant of it with "house rules." That's where the term comes from: they are rules for "your house."
Like the standard rules, you don't need to have house rules--naturally, if your group prefers the labyrinthine rule sets for D&D or Pathfinder or whatever you play, then more power to you. But for most of us out here, we like to add our own twist on those rules, eliminating elements that are too technical or boring and adding sets we think make the game more immersive and more believable. Or, you might say... more fun.
Since... you know... that IS the whole point.
John Babylon If I had money to hire a script writer, you’d be hired.
Hey Professor - if I had something to send to you, where would I get in touch? We just released the first issue of our magazine Tabletops & Tentacles and I'm not looking for a review or anything, just thought you might enjoy a copy. I've subscribed to you for over a year and your videos have been incredibly helpful to me and I wanted to say thanks.
professordungeonmaster@yahoo.com
I’m intrigued by the Player facing combat. Do you pair it with any modifiers? Or is that just built into armor class? It’s very curious... the heavy armor wearers and the dexterity derived ACs feel different here. I need to think on it more. Either way, thanks for the nuanced and helpful video.
I have an entire video on this topic ready to go. maybe next week. We'll see.
Hey I'm excited for this because while our preferences in D&D and roleplaying games are very different It's always interesting to hear such a wildly variant point of view to the opinions I'm usually surrounded by. Normally I dungeon master, but as a player my primary concern when I hear a lot of your house rules from earlier videos is that I would feel like my choices don't have any mechanical meaning as a player. If my characters hit points cap at a low value that isn't really even that varied based on class/stat/race because as a whole you want combat to be quick and deadly then I feel like no matter what I do as a player I'm just beholden to dying if I get hit. If everything in the room is a specified difficulty class to make adjudication faster, and you judge whether I can do something based on what archtype I'm playing (fighter, thief, cleric, magic user) then my character as an individual doesn't matter. I'm going to be just as good at lockpicking as every other thief. If everyone gets one action on a turn then really it just feels like I'm throwing my one thing into the pot and while it does make it more of a collaborative effort I almost feel like I could be missing from the table and it wouldn't matter. I have no way of leveraging rules because there's no foundation that the player has any control over. Which is definitely something that seems by design, after all your the dungeon master, what you say goes. However it just seems too far in that direction for me because I feel like I wouldn't even have control over my own character- their success and failure isn't even determined by the dice, it just feels like its arbitrary decision making that isn't transparent at all- like I'm just along for a ride and I'm getting whatever narrative stew is delivered. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it feels like it breaks a lot of the trust I'd expect at the table because as a player there should be moments where the DM loses control too. That's what really makes it a collaborative storytelling experience.
Hi! I think what this boils down to is what kind of experience you are looking for at your table: if the majority of people on the table tend toward the tactician spectrum of player personalities and derive most of their fun from crunching the numbers and mastering the mechanics, many of these proposed changes are not meant for that table. These house rules aim to facilitate and accelerate a more narrative and/or thespian playstyle. For players who derive most of their fun from these game aspects, it is not the HP or the AC or their proficiency in some skill that defines their character, but their, well... *character*, or personality. When you say you'd be afraid your character as an individual doesn't matter, you are refering to the mechanical individuality of the character; but in a more narrative-focused game the decisions and actions of each single character shape the overall story and experience more than whether that character gets a +2 or +4 to a saving throw. A thief with a heart of gold from a humble background will behave very differently when themselves being targeted by urchin pickpockets than a greedy catburglar who is strictly in the business of filling their pockets, no matter who suffers for it - and it is these deciding narrative moments these house rules are meant to lead to more quickly per session, at the expense of mechanical detail.
I don't fully understand the criticism on losing control of your character with the house rules presented here, on the contrary: the player facing combat gives the player MORE rolls, and therefore fewer chances for the DM to fudge, should you be allergic to that. A thing I just realized is how "arbitrary" is usually negatively connotated, though a DM is exactly that, an arbiter, a judge. Maybe we as a community should move to haphazard or capricious to describe unwanted, unexpected or incomprehensible DM adjucation.
While I can't speak directly for PDM's game itself as I've never played in it, I can defend the narrative style and say that it's not nearly as disempowering as you might think. I realize that for some those that are used to the wargamey chess game, it can feel very disempowering to take away all the grid squares. But with the loss of the chess game, you get a ton of narrative freedom. It does require a good narrative DM of course, but you'll be rewarded for good plays in the narrative. Back in the OSR days it wasn't just throwing perception skill at everything. You'd be probing with a 10 ft pole, tapping walls looking for hollow spots, opening chests from the side to avoid a dart trap and so on. And if you played during those days, the modern rules-hard styles felt very constraining. In many cases it was more about player ingenuity than just having the right ability on your character sheet to solve the problem. Most modern DMs wouldn't have any idea how to rule on a PC using a 10 ft pole or all the other manner of crazy ideas OSR-style PCs come up with.
Hell if anything, I feel like the narrative thief is a lot more interesting, because the modern incarnation is just "make a perception check, and then a disable device check to open locks or disarm traps." That to me is very boring. You're basically just tossing dice at problems hoping they go away.
Really I don't have trouble with either style and think both work well, really I feel like the problem comes in when DMs rule inconsistently, sometimes making rigid wargamey rulings and other times making narrative common sense rulings.
I don't have a problem with narrative DMing, and I don't think that more mechanically heavy roleplaying means that the roleplay has to stop or that problemsolving goes out the window. The main problem I have, and the main place that I see loss of control, is the emphasis on game pacing and dramatic tension at the expense of character choice or player control. For example using 5e D&D as a basis, mechanically the only repercussion for using a longbow without proficiency is a lack of the proficiency bonus. I've been in games where we decided to ambush a ferryboat on a river. We had longbows for every party member regardless of class because we knew that they had a range of 150/600 feet and that even if you were taking non proficient shots at disadvantage that ship was stuck following the rivers current and couldn't just turn around easily because we had scouted the terrain beforehand.
From a narrative perspective that combat had essentially no dramatic tension to it because the people guarding the ferry were trapped, if they tried to jump off and swim we had answers for it, if they simply tried to hide on the boat we had the option of stopping the ship and waiting them out. As a player I'd be incredibly frustrated if a narrative focused DM invented a new problem to insert dramatic tension into a moment where the players set themselves up for success- were there should be no tension because they planned and executed. If the DM said "No your mage can't use a longbow because they aren't proficient" I'd understand if they physically couldn't pull it back and they were as restricted with every other type of strength based requirement- but if it was just to force the party to insert their characters and split up based on ability I wouldn't like it.
I wouldn't be a fan of requirements and limitations being inserted or removed based on rule of cool or narrative tension. I want consistency and a structural foundation that allows creativity to exist. Because without a structural stability- whether that comes from a firm rules system or a narrative DM that is impartial and consistent, then you can't really be creative because every situation is adjudicated based on whim. When drama and pacing take paramount importance over consistency and worldbuilding is where I really have a problem with things. So when the mentality is "whats the right answer- it doesn't matter make a call and keep the game moving" or "tell me what you want your spell to do and I'll tell you what it does this time." Then i need a huge amount of trust in that DM that he's not running things just to keep the story engaging at the expense of knowing I can actually influence situations and I'm interacting with a real world.
@@RemedialHappyMan I feel like most of the things you are afraid of happening when using PDM's house rules are not really side effects of the rules in and of themselves, but boil down to an inconsistent or even antagonistic DM who can't gauge or doesn't prioritize the engagement of their players. When you say "without a structural stability- whether that comes from a firm rules system or a narrative DM that is impartial and consistent, then you can't really be creative because every situation is adjudicated based on whim", you seem to imply that EITHER firm rules OR an impartial and consistent DM is sufficient to ensure the stability you crave, but I submit that the DM is head and shoulders more important to the "stability" of a game than the rules system. Remember, even if the players think they can "beat the DM", plan for every eventuality, the DM could in theory deus ex machina the hell out of a situation and just make all that planning obsolete, totally rules legal, because they are the DM - although a very bad one. When DMs use that power simply to thwart the players' plans and make them feel miserable and defeated, it doesn't matter whether they obey every RAW, FAQ and errata or not - they are a bad DM and will probably ruin every table, no matter the game system. The moment you accept that a good DM is ON YOUR SIDE and trying to tell your characters' stories as compellingly as possible, players shouldn't feel restricted by fewer rules, but empowered to do what brings the most fun to the table, regardless of numbers on character sheets.
A question on your ferry ambush example: When you say "from a narrative perspective that combat had essentially no dramatic tension to it", why was that so, and how long did you play out that combat with "no tension to it"? And was it still fun? If you planned the ambush so well that there was literally absolutely no possibility of another outcome (the ambushed have no ranged weapons, no magic users, no emergency escape plans, no backup?), do you really need to play out 20-60 minutes of game time and x combat rounds to wait until the dice "decided" you decimated them? Or would you rather that the DM describes or even lets YOU as players describe what exactly happened, how you heroically stopped the escaping despot and his retinue and brought them to justice as a reward for your incredibly solid plan (that probably took as long as an actual combat to come up with), and then get on with the story? When a scene has *literally* no tension, only one possible outcome - why play it? Just to roll dice for the sake of rolling dice?
@@PatchedUpMusic
I definitely think you're right in that an antagonistic DM can easily just circumvent a rules system. It's within their right to change any circumstance they want and they can always justify it after- in fact they never need to justify it. They're the DM and what they say happens happened.
There was no dramatic tension because the outcome was pretty much pre-determined, no characters were at any risk, success was pretty much guaranteed. It took maybe 50 minutes to play out and I still think it was fun because it was a few precious moments to see characters come to life. I can say my character is a dexterous fighter who is a good archer- but if we just narratively played it out and cut through the ambush I'd just be saying things- it feels like when the dice fall and you get to add those modifiers its a statistical confirmation that gives you the greenlight to roleplay something and say "yes this actually happened- I didn't just say it, the rules that we use to adjudicate the world confirmed it." It's silly but it adds credence to adult make believe in the same way that the DM making a name up for an NPC on the fly feels less real than if he had it written down before hand. He's literally making up the NPC in both cases but the dice falling, and the name being written down somehow magically hack the perception that "these things are real and codified" even though I know that's silly.
To me the story of the game is what happens at the table when everyone is playing their characters. I still remember roleplaying an unplanned moment where our characters were writing our wills and it got me to confess to another character and it lead to a huge roleplaying moment that felt real. However in regards to narrative plots that the DM is weaving I'd rather roleplay cooking sausage around the campfire while rotating watches than discover who murdered the lords niece. I'm not a beer and pretzels tactical player- I love roleplaying and having complex characters but I want a simulated world far more than I want a dramatic narrative. If we play for 8 hours wandering the wilderness and just never happen to roll on a wilderness table that puts us in any dramatic situations then that makes the game feel more real than if the DM interjects a dramatic moment just because nothing is happening. Sometimes literally nothing happens, the weather is clear skies, and there's nothing to do but march and enjoy the peace.
I feel like this is going to be a long video since your game seems to be mostly house rules lol, very excited!
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thank you for the video! I find a lot of places online, not just your comment section, have the "why are you trying to change the rules" mentality. I get frustrated with people who say "if you like older editions then go play them", and "maybe D&D isn't the system you want to play".
I really like D&D 5e, but there's a few things I want to add or borrow from Pathfinder 2e or other editions of the game. This video is so right in that the only permission anyone needs to use house rules is their players enjoying the game.
@@TaberIV So do I. Thanks for watching and pass this video along and let it do the arguing for you!
My only problem with the spell failure system as described here is that there are already defensive saving throws built in to so many spells anyway, and I can imagine a player feeling really cheated, especially at lower levels, if his roll succeeds only to be negated by a saving throw. Seems like in those cases you would need to use one or the other, modifying the spell's "roll for success" target as appropriate for the adversary.
Sage McLaughlin Good point. If that happens, ditch saving throws.
I feel I should point out that Constitution is also still valuable in "Harcore Mode" because you can make a DC 10 "Grit Your Teeth" check to spend hit dice during combat or when rest isn't an option, presumably at the cost of an action. Arguably, this makes Constitution just as important as ever. I think it's a brilliant alternative to just adding CON to HP up front.
I agree. I did mention it but cut it for time. Shoulda kept it.
How do you handle saving-throws with roll-to-cast? Seems like, if you keep saving throws, it disincentivizes players from casting any spell that allows a target to roll a saving-throw.
My guess is saving throws are completely replaced by the roll-to-cast rule. To affect the target, simply roll to succeed. If the players are targeted by a spell, the player-facing rules would mean they roll to avoid it.
They just roll a normal saving throw.
i wish i could play with spell failure but my players of course don't want it. If i overruled them i would have no one to play with
I hear you. Happened to me when I wanted to switch to Dungeonworld.
What about other RPG systems other than D&D? Such as GURPS, storyteller, the SWD6. Is there any other system you enjoy and would like to suggest to players looking for something different?
At a certain point you realize that every action resolution mechanic can be reduced to percentiles and most people tend to prefer d20 roll high to d100 roll low. The core mechanic of that basic "d20" system is the language he's speaking in since the 3.x/OGL movement was so incredibly revolutionary and influential...but these insights can be ported over to any system as long as it involves dice rolls.
I love modifying rules. I've done it so much I am contemplating publishing my game.
Oh, and 137 (the episode number) is my favorite number. :)
DO IT! I'll buy it on the first day.
A Huge High Five to PDM for your signature ending...class is back in session. lol Anyway, I think we've heard most of these ideas over the course of your videos. Nice to see them in one place. But more than that, I like the idea that you discussed one of them that your still contemplating showing that these rules can be refined and detailed out. Nothing is set in stone if another or better idea comes along. You have the best Dungeons and Dragons channel anywhere. Agree or Disagree with your talking points...you make us think and strive to better the/our game. Always look forward to Thursday. And another Huge High Five to your friend Veronica, a true hero...praying for her safety and thanking her for her efforts. Yes, I'm stealing this, but can't think of anyone who deserves it more...PDM and Veronica...May all your rolls be 20's as well. Cheers!!
Thank you so much for this long, very kind, very encouraging post. It's very flattering, because there are so many great D&D channels. Please share DungeonCraft wherever you can so we can grow. Cheers!
Death Bringer has had such great character development.
Not really a big fan of 5e but while I was running it I implemented a house rule that inspiration could be acquired up to 5 points and spent thusly:
1 = standard inspiration effects
3 = one automatic success/hit
5 = one automatic critical success/hit
This provided plenty of incentive to role-play and remedied what I've always hated in gaming- that universal law that says when the player delivers the coolest line of the campaign but rolls lousy on the follow-through thus ruining their shining moment.
Running an OSR clone, I created my own magic system similar to yours: no spell slots, cast whenever but use a d12 and require the player to roll higher than the spell's level (I have modifiers on a chart of which they have copies). I like this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that those long, intricate and complex spells are just that much harder to keep straight when under serious pressure.
Thanks for sharing! Instead of inspiration, I recommend DM Scotty's (from DM's Craft) Luck Dice. Once you play with it, inspiration is like watching paint dry. It solves the very problem you describe--whiffing the shining moment. I don't get a kick-back. I just love it and recommend it everyone. At $1 it's a bargain: www.questgivers.com/product.php?p=20
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks for the tip; I'll check it out!
Yet another video I love.
Please more videos like this!
Working all the time on them. Thank you.
I hope that your son's time in the Army is going/has gone well.
Thank you. He is very happy there and I am very proud of him.
this popped up in my feed the same day as I found out that one of the P2e options one of my players wanted was an updated version of the P1e ability that came out a year after I had house-ruled it into existence in a campaign from over a decade ago. also had class-independent archetypes before they showed up in books. someone keeps reading my house rule notes.
Glad you found it!
@DUNGEONCRAFT1 been a fan for a while. I used to have the guy in my gaming group who designed the thief class that Gygax stole. 🤓
SO MUCH YES IN THIS VID. I'm going to start doing more of these. great content, thanks!
he didnt get the china cabinet and now he dont get the bigger room.......thats harsh
Thanks for watching for a LONG time. At least I'll get the small room.
I love all Dungeoncraft videos!
Thank you.
Is it just me, or is Professor Dungeon Master in love with Veronica? Personally, I'm Team Betty.
My Veronica is blonde. And actually, my wife looks like Betty.
Re: critical spell failure. Do you require the roll on all magic, including cleric spells? What about spells that already have an attack roll (shocking grasp)?
Great question. Shocking grasp only requires one roll. Yes, clerics roll too. Watch this: ruclips.net/video/Tlu0t4Y-Auk/видео.html
I been in a few games were wizards had two Hp pools.
first pool.) stander 1d4hp for falling and melee damage.
second pool.) to resist spell effect damage, 4d6 per level. Reason, wizards train in slapping each other around with Fire Balls & Lightning Bolts. And everyone else slaps each other with sticks and swords.
Funny thing is, in games like these, the Dice takes on a life of their own. OMG how things can go wrong ! L.O.L.!
Thumbs up for Dan and Veronica !
To be honest, i do not understand your player-facing combat rule. Attack saving throws make more sense to me. Roll a d20, add your armor bonus, try to meet or beat 15.
I have a whole video on this coming up. Stay tuned!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 will do!
I go with a simple xp progression. Level1-4, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, per level, by level 20, it's 19000-20000 for max level.
For giving out xp, lower levels, I go with 250 for a section, end of mini adventure or session, if 3000 xp are given, they get two levels. At higher levels, sections can be worth 500 to 2500 xp. It depends on how often the group plays together.
Easy to understand. I like it.
Well thanks... now I have "Veronica" by Elvis Costello going through my head.
We used to sing that to her all the time. Why did we stop?
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Because 31 years passed and now it's on Oldies stations? That would be my guess, anyway. :) ruclips.net/video/g-rF4COOd9c/видео.html
Ive noticed my Players rarely ever read the rules so I tend to steal mechanics I like from other games to put in whatever game I'm running.
Then I get to use all my favourite mechanics.
My favourite house rule is characters get contacts at charcter creation, they only need to come up with them when they need a contact for x. That way they dont have useless contacts.
I agree with all of this except the rolling to cast every spell, it's too big a change for 5e to work without making spellcasting too unreliable AND it goes against my ethos for "guys we're rolling the dice WAY too much". Rolling the dice isn't necessary a lot of the time, you don't need to roll a dice for everything in the game, most of the time your decisions should just work as expected. Like you don't need to roll for every jump, every climb, every NPC interaction.
I'd have rolling to cast spells if you otherwise couldn't cast a spell, because you hadn't prepared it or were out of spell slots.
Thanks again for the great ideas. I love houseruling D&D. Dragon Magazine (and 1e AD&D with all it's quirks) was a group test crucible back in the day and I remember adding HERO POINTS from Dragon 118. They were a knock-off of the TOP SECRET Fame and Fortune points from 1979.
Good Man.
Homebrew the crap outta those rules!
Thanks for the comment and your patronage!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Best $15/month I've ever spent.
Cheers!
The rules are made by Hasbro... they make Hungry Hungry Hippos. LOLOLOL. Yeah, not sure why Hasbro/ WOTC ever became worshipped by some.
I am a fan of your creativity and designs. Some of your "homebrew" ideas are great. Thanks for putting your knowledge and advice out here for our community.
Thanks you for taking the time to comment, Matthew. It helps grow the channel and I really appreciate it.
I love player facing defense, but hate the math. I know it is just 20-AC (with mods) +2 but it is still math. I may just try having the players roll AS THE ORC fighting against them (while they pray for a low roll).
I'm usually against HR because I think they change a lot balance:
For example CON is meant to differentiate pg HP...
For example DEX is meant to differentiate pg Initiative...
But I understand that FUN has a priority.
Anyway I'm really happy that you shared the "facing combat" rule. I love it, because it doesn't change the math, involves the player more and reduce the work for the DM.
In short you are letting the player rolls with a complementar d20, setting an equivalent DC to their rolls.
U can use this formula to speed up mental calculation:
DC=22-DELTA
where DELTA = AC - Hit Bonus (When monsters attack PG; u can see it as PG trying to dodge)
where DELTA = DC - Save bonus (When monster try to resist spells; u can see it as PG trying to hit the monster)
I think too much HP gain is probably my biggest complaint about D&D. What do you think of switching to gaining a smaller fixed number plus CON mod at levels after 1 or after 4. For instance, wizards and sorcerers could gain 1+CON mod per level, rogues, monks, bards, etc. gain 2+CON mod, fighters, rangers, paladins 3+CON mod, and 4+CON mod for a barbarian?
Initiative: flip coin or 1d4 even gos clockwise odds gos counter clockwise. Depending on which direction rock,paper,scissors to player left or right of DM winner either player or enemies gos first. Takes 3 seconds, example start of every round (or combat) DM rolls 1d4 rolls 3, looks player to the right DM throws Rock, Player throws paper meaning that round of combat players go first counter clockwise around table followed by enemies. Once everyone gers used to it gos pretty fast add randomness. DM could pick random player for rock,paper,scissors for even more randomness and no math.
Ok but the rule about letting the player roll to see if the enemy hits is really genious. Im definitelly going to try that with my group of new players
I've been using the no initiative rule for a few weeks now. My players love it. The mages also enjoy rolling on their spells. I got both of these ideas from your channel. Awesome stuff.
Any tabletop game that goes on long enough eventually becomes an amalgamation of book rules and house rules.
Instead of tit-for-tat combat strikes, engaging in melee becomes a skill contest between two or more opponents. When attacking an unaware target, it becomes an uncontested skill check.
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No AC; armour absorbs damage (plate is impervious to piercing/slashing attacks except where there is a STR bonus). Each time enough damage is dealt to cause actual HP loss to the target, the armour suffers -1 to its reduction value.
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DEX mod is used for all combat manoeuvres. STR damage mod is only used for melee or throwing weapons.
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Hit location is rolled at same time as damage die. Helmets provide separate damage reduction from body armour. Shields do not provide damage reduction but a defense modifier instead, since once a successful hit has been made it is assumed the shield has been bypassed.
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Target losing 50% of remaining HP suffers a debilitating injury. At 75% loss that injury becomes a permanent, lingering injury even after full healing.
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Characters only advance 9 levels, and these align with spell levels for casters.
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Any character can wear armour but rogues and casters make checks using their primary skills at disadvantage when so doing.
Skills are generalised and fall into Primary skills (minimum +2 proficiency bonus) and Secondary skills (+1). Any skill can be improved as a perk of gaining an experience level (max +5).
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Skill checks including combat rolls are 2d10 (bell curve). Natural 20 and natural 2 are critical/auto hits/misses. Roll 3d10 and take highest/lowest two to factor advantage/disadvantage.
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Spellcasting requires a skill check. Graduating scale of spell efficacy from spectacular success (unexpected benefit) to devastating failure (self-inflicted injury or negative divine consequences).
Only the 7th and 9th doesn't suck IMO. Everything in this list slows the game down by A LOT.
In RPG, less is more... That means you can always add complexity by giving them special items and custom spells so the less complex the rules (which is Static Complexity) the more you can give complex gear (which is Adaptative/Dynamic Complexity), so every game is different from each other, even with the same classes and races.
I was working on a homebrew system based on this concept and I quickly realized two things: (1) just adding [# of sides on the attack die]/2 (rounded down) to the defense modifier...this would be a +10 on a d20, +5 for my d10 based homebrew...drastically speeds up the combats (even if your system is based around degrees of success or failure based on the difference between the result and the DC); (2) in systems where combat is based on contested checks it comes down to how many times per round a character can roll a die (or add the average roll to their modifier if you want static defense/AC) and the entire combat system will focus on "action points" and ganging up on opponents (which is realistic but might not be how you want combats to work).
@@antieverything1 Can you elaborate on point #2? I'm not sure I follow you. What are "action points"?
I used to love hit locations. I realized some things with it though... it slows down player narration as they basically have to wait for the a bunch of dice to stop rolling before they know (in the case of your system) 1. Did I hit? 2. Where was it, head to foot to fingers? 3. Was it sufficient to get through the armour? 4. Would it cause serious wounding? All before they can smoothly narrate even how the attack begins.
It seems like people that narrate or rp their attacks generally start with a general area that the attack is going to move towards ie "i punch him in the face" "i bring my axe arching down" with hit locations being randomized you can get "I punch him in the face." Finish with the dice saying "nah, you hit his knee."
This isnt a dig on it... as a DM i love brutal combat that leaves scars and takes limbs off... i feel that your system aims for that. Its very D&D 2.5e Skills and Powers age. Taking your PCs hand off with narration alone can anger a player for sure. If you put it to the dice you have the chance of hamds coming off without the chance of seemingly being a 'mean DM'. I also like having armour that is a damage reduction and is better against certain forms of attack.... but... i have learned to just use common sense with somethings. Full plate vs a whip shouldn't work well... but lets take a Dungeon World style example....
PC: "I lashout with my whip." Rolls a hit
DM: " As the knight moves into your range , your expert placement sends your whip lashing out under the edge of its helmet snapping into thier windpipe."
You can narrate chinks in the armour...
I hope your system works for your table. I was/am a heavy homebrewer of rules... i just recently switched the Dungeon World system that seems better able to handle it than say 5e.
@@MatthewLeLievre Good points there. This set of homebrews is something I've been working on during the lockdown. I drew some stuff from both RuneQuest and Hackmaster, as well as PDM's own ideas.
I don't know the Dungeon World system but I'll look into it.
It is a fascinating idea to think about running the whole schoolsystem on D&D :oD
You can teach almost everything through RPG-Gameplay....
MATH, LANGUAGE, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, RELIGION, SOCIALOLGY,. Storytelling, Dramaturgy, Acting, Strategy....
As a teacher you should create a concept for a pure RPG-Elementary-School for Kids
Regarding "Player Facing Combat": Forgive me if this sounds hopelessly naive, but what if players ALSO rolled d20 for the monsters at the same time they rolled d20 for their own hits? Couldn't you leave out Initiative this way, too, and then just let whichever of them "hit" deal damage? Players could also roll for the PC or the NPC dealing damage. If BOTH score a hit, then whichever of them rolls a higher damage roll (also rolled simultaneously) inflicts dmg first. It would speed things up, be more exciting for the players. I guess if there are NPC combatants not paired off (because a mob of NPCs outnumber PC's), then the DM could roll for them. What am I missing? What are the pros/cons?
Many years ago, a former group decided to try playing DnD with Mage Rules. That was pretty fun back then. Fast forward and across the country I joined a new group playing 3.5 which was very similar to that previous experience. - Gotta luv trying new mechanics
I came up with a rule, in case you want Constitution to matter more in your game.
You add your constitution modifier to your hit points only once. If your constitution modifier changes, ajust your hit point maximum accordingly.
Vitality rule: You have vitality points that represent your life force and how much mortal wounds you can take before you can't endure anymore.
You vitality points on level 1 equals your Constitution value. If your Constitution value increases you get that same amount in extra vitality points (1 extra constitution point = 1 extra vitality point).
Whenever your character drops to 0 hit points you lose one vitality point (you still must roll death saves).
As optional rules, losing vitality points may also give your character a scar. Special attacks that lowers your hit point maximum (like the Succubus/Incubus kiss) also drain one vitality point. If any massive damage rule is being used the DM might also request a CON saving throw (DC 15) to avoid losing vitality points in that situation.
If a character loses all his vitality points he dies and can not be resurrected.
Example: Tordin, the dwarf, has a constitution value of 16 on level one. Which means he has 16 vitality points and he gets +3 hit points.
In his adventures he dropped to 0 hit points 12 times and has only 4 vitality points left.
At level 4 however Tordin decides to add 2 points in constitution (total = 18). That gives him 2 extra vitality points (total = 6) and increases his hit point maximum by 1 point (since his modifier went from +3 to +4).
Feel free to alter this rule as you want ^_^
PS: If a rule like this already exists, I'm sorry, I'm just ignorant to that fact. I'm not trying to take credit for anything.
Remember the golden rule: You're the DM, you make the rules.
Right on!
And a DM with zero players is a Zero DM =P
@@EricScheid then they don’t really want to play table top. If they’re having fun they’ll play.
#3 Player Facing Combat...
Never heard of that idea before.
I play RIFTS which includes dodging and you Rolling a D20 to avoid being hit, but it works as an oppose roll (higher one wins, ties defender win) makes combat last forever lol.
But this Players Facing Combat... I like it... To bad it doesn't work with the simultaneous attacks to get rid of initiative.
If you have 6 players the first one will resolve his action and then proceed to play with his pen and doodle or knit (for my female players lol).
The key takeaway IMO is that there is no perfect system. But I agree that ICRPG and Five Torches Deep comes close, with some of the Dungeon Adventuring rules from Old School Essentials and the spell failure / corruption rules from DCC.
Rules can not be improved. This modern growing crops/writing/bronze/deomcracy (except player not accpting DMs rulings) shite is not good for you!
House Rules MUST exist. As long as DM and Players understand and agree beforehand.
It's a game - that has been changed by the publishers a million times. Nothing is set in concrete. It's meant to be FUN!
In my games, a 1 is NOT always a 'miss' and a 20 is NOT always a 'hit', for example. I have other variants.
I think rolling to cast spells only really works when not using spell slots. The "risk" becomes the cost of the spell. I'm thinking like Runequest based games like Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer...and in these casting spells is a skill the PC can get better at.
In the base rules (most?) combat related spells already rely on a roll to be successful. So does a fire bolt requires a roll to cast and another to hit? If the setting is (very) low magic, maybe that works. But "default" D&D is high magic imo.
I just realised something else. I don't really finding rolling dice "fun". Sure randomness can add some tension, but I play to RP and to solve problems and DM players who are the same. imo the tension should come from the stakes and emotional investment, not a plastic polyhedron. In fact I think a lot of DMs rely too much on dice to add tension. As a player I've flatly refused to roll Perception when asking what my character sees by glancing in a room. "Assume I roll a 1. What does my character see."
Back in 1e we used to use a critical hit system where, if you rolled a 20 to hit you'd roll again. If you rolled an 18-19 on the second roll, it was double damage. If the second roll was a 20 was an instant kill. As the players are (obviously) playing the PCs, probability capped out PC life expectancy to generally be level 10 or so (lower for fighter types). So it almost became a race to get Raise Dead before you got critted by an enemy.
House rule I encountered back in the day: Natural 20 crit hits.....opponent must make death save. On failure death, if they save they take double damage.
I was actually going to ask why you were playing D&D, but that's because I know how much you love Warhammer; why are you playing hamburger when you could be playing filet mignon? But I think I get it: You have limited time and play with a wide diversity of (often new) players. D&D doesn't have the depth of other games, and you've streamlined it even further. That seems ideal for your situation. Very cool. Good for you.
Back in high school I had random spell failure chart. I made it real goofy because I wanted to add some levity and humor to game. I don't remember all failures but some were PC gender would switch or 1d8 cows would appear. Just silly stuff made for some funny encounters.
All this seemed a repeat of previous episodes.
I will re-do my house rules at the same time every year. This means you watch every video, and I am very grateful. Coming up: running player-facing combat, my review of Warhammer FRP, and the story of the worst game I've ever run. Stay tuned!
I think that I still prefer the Attack-as-Initiative system, because I don't think I *quite* get player-facing combat. I get that the orc who has to roll a (natural) 15 or better to hit has six number that he can hit, but I don't know how you reliably calculate that if the player and the monster both have bonuses. You certainly cannot do it at the table in less time than it takes to look up a complicated spell in the phb.
But also, why are all these crybabies accusing you of hating combat? Why does "boardgame" initiative do except make the combat LESS exciting? If you can get in and out of combat quickly, then the party can fight MORE combats. In the event that you want a long, epic battle, then shouldn't you want a single, itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny, pathetic combat round to be over with quickly, so that you can get on to the remaining 20 rounds it will take for the PCs to plow through the WAVES and WAVES of enemies you have planned? Don't you want to do something big without keeping the entire game group up past DAWN?
That part about Player Facing Combat melted my brain. See, I'm a 3.X player (that switched to Pathfinder over time) and there was an optional rule (I can't remember if it was from Unearthed Arcana or the DMG) where you could have your players roll AC. Seeing as we were already quite high level we switched to this system to add a little variability in the results (and as a DM I thought they would like the option to roll for defense rather than just having a static number, because who doesn't love rolling dice) and never looked back, but lately I've been using the group initiative variant among other things in order to speed up combat, and I was considering dropping that specific rule to minimize the math... And I never even thought of doing it this way. This is brilliant. And I'm dumb.
"Once I own it, I can do what I wish with it."
2023 Hasbro: *would like to know your location*
Seriously though, love this!
Always remember everything about dnd is subject to the dms modifications and exceptions....
How much experience does a player need to dungeon master well? I have been in the board game hobby a long time (22years), teaching and running board games is something I’d like to think I do well, but DMing is another animal altogether. As a DM you teach how to play, but even more, you tell a story and help the party experience an adventure. I would love to DM but feel like there is so much in this huge game I don’t know about yet. I have been playing DND for about a year, it’s the game I have been looking for in board games but didn’t know it. “The Dungeon Craft Way” that you teach makes even more sense to me than straight 5e. Thank you for what you do! On your recommendation I even picked up Index Card RPG. It is very clear to me how house rules or variants can add exciting flair, speed or intrigue to a game. Should a first time DM use house rules? It is very intimidating to begin as a DM, how much of the DND do you have to know? What are key pitfalls to avoid? I don’t want my first effort to explode halfway through and end up a poor experience for players.
I like milestones as they focus players on the mission(s) they are undertaking and meaningful achievements. I think, in part, murder hoboism is partially due to XP from combat (and back in the day, treasure). How characters advance is a message to players and should reinforce how the majority of the table (implicitly or explicitly) wants the game to run. I'm also a fan of XP for player drive subplots etc.
One thing though, I never give characters rewards for things players do and I give the same XP for all characters. I like parties which act as a team, and don't like the competitiveness permanent rewards for players entail. imo Advantage works fine for that.
Hit points are placebos in my game. My players don't know; I let them subtract and add as much as they want; but they all have 4 hit points.
Full health Fresh; advantage.
One Hit Tired.
Second hit they are winded, superficial scratch; narrate they might be in trouble.
Third hit, bleeding; trigger fight or flight.
Fourth injured, disadvantage. Next dead.
If they survive they will have a permanent debuff of their choice. Scar, a limp, lost an eye... they choose and narrate what happens to their character.
Simply divide whatever ridiculous amount of hit points they have by 5. Done every single attack from everything deals 1/5 or more if its a big monster. They won't even notice... and by the time they do you can ditch hit points entirely.
So watching this and having heard about the old "gold for XP" system has made me really feel like introducing a "Goals" system the next time I run Pathfinder.
I'm way too attached to the Experience Points method of progression, for reasons I do not understand. So I would just make it worth a flexible amount of xp dependant on how risky and character driven the goal was.
I'm still running through options of how to do it, but I'm thinking I might set the options out for Short-term and Mid-term goals to be written out for a boat load of Exp, and then during sessions players could make up two goals for smaller amounts.
I'm definitely considering using the slow track for gaining levels so that goals will be a meaningfully large addition to their progression without over levelling them.
Love your take on the concept of house rules and expectations of the designers. They make a fun game we enjoy, but are also regular people working their very real job, with real constraints and deadlines.
Also that you bring up that they have different house rules on their own! The individual designers! Showing they are not a hive mind but people building a game with all the compromises that entails.
I think it is good to acknowledge that they likely have a good design grasp, and therefore their rules are likely thought out. However, that does not mean the game is exactly crafted for you or your group. So hacking the game to slightly steer it in the direction you want is brilliant!
I have my own system for level advancement. The best example is like a classic Zelda game: Characters have a base set of skills that doesn’t really change (a 12 on a d20 is a success for any skill that fits their history/profession), a couple of signature items that will grow as they accomplish more things. The only leveling they do is hit points. Everyone starts with 16, and they add 1 hp to their hp total after they have taken a cumulative of their current Max hp in damage. So if they have 16 hp and they take 4 damage 4 times across 3 encounters ( they likely will have healed between these encounters, but that doesn’t affect the cumulative tracking of hp loss for advancement) they will add 1 hp to their maximum which will now be 17 hp. This accounts for being more accustomed to taking a hit, so if you always hang out in the back shooting a bow/casting spells your hp maximum will never change, but frontliners will get better and better at taking hits, acting while injured and shrugging off lower damage injuries in battle.
I am from Russia and I am not a native speaker. Back in the day, translations weren't existed beyond fan translated core books, so people had to use English books. I still remember how I struggled to create my first character - a 1 lvl rogue in dnd 3.5 - it took around 1 week with a dictionary. Yeah, dnd and marvel movies definitely contributed a lot to my English education.
No, dad, it's not supposed to be a tie fighter!
This is my proposal for a modular EVA vehicle for working outside the ISS.
Removing the CON bonus to HP on both sides is quite tempting. Ever since 3rd edition, monster's have had far too much health. Which in turn hurts fighters and blaster wizards because their output was and still is not up to the task of chewing through all that health. The extra deadly nature of combat for the characters is a nice side benefit. Also makes the barbarian's d12 and the wizard's d6 stick out more.
I am 29 and find you infinitely insightful, sir. Ha
I like doing my best at whatever I do and you’re a great mentor for D&D.
I absolutely adore the mvp idea.
Also, I’ll ask my players after the recap where they want to sit based off the initiative they might possibly be in, in that particular session.
I’m not going to comment on every video, thanking you for the ideas you’ve given me. If I say it once on the internet, I’ve said it a thousand million times. Thank you, professor.
Very nice video, one of your best. One thing to add is that the WotC folks have to create a game for the widest possible audience; that's Hasbro's sales / marketing imperative. DM's have the freedom to create the best possible game for their group. This is a huge inherent advantage hobbyist DM's have over corporate Hasbro. Thanks for encouraging the creative, independent, dynamic spirit of the early days of the hobby!
D&D was a game built by, and for, adults experienced in gaming. You can’t have a good time with your elementary school age kids who lack a strong maths ability to crunch serious numbers. You have to house rule once you’ve seen them wander away from the combat because it just took too long. I enjoy the crunch but nothing is more boring than rolling a 2 and waiting for everyone else to a 7 year old.
About initiative, i have been playing the RPG KULT: Divinity Lost for many years (tester) and it does not have a initiative, the character that is supposed to act first just acts first and so on.
Never been a issue.
Example: The character walks into a room and the DM asks if you pay attention to the dark corner, wich the character never does because it is reading a book - the assassin acts first.
So now we do not use initiative in DnD :)
Works as a charm.
I have a few house rules. And everyone should. What rule I don’t like is AC. Don’t know what to do with it, but I know I don’t like it. Also, I work in a really laboratory, and I’ve realized something, dnd comments is worse then a peer review on a journal or abstract. But man change initiative in dnd, wholly crap, I got take a shot of bourbon before I read. Tip of the hat.
One of my favorite XP methods we called, "Begging for experience." At the end of a session or at some stop point, we would all receive a base level of experience, then one by one we would go around and explain what we did "in character" that was exceptional or demonstrated good role play for that character. Playing well in character, and pushing or capitalizing on the character class, role, alignment, backstory, and so on earned experience. We would cheer each other on, remind each other of their character's good and bad deeds. It was great way to recap a session with a bit of comraderie wrap up the fun.
Player facing combat. Like in Cypher system. I find it bit more boring on DM. And that it bit removes that feeling you are fighting outside enemy. Like this it seems you are battling yourself.