One House Rule I implemented that I absolutely love is Inspiring Criticals. I’m not sure what the official terminology is but basically, whenever a character rolls a Natural 20 they can choose one character that has line of sight of them to gain Inspiration. I’ve added a couple extra things players can use Inspiration for but I’ve loved seeing my players rp their crits and describing how they Inspire their comrades. I’m considering adding Crunchy Crits atop of it and I think I just might! Hopefully it doesn’t get crazy
One of my favorite house rules is the ability to stack dm inspirations up to 3 times, and to award them based off off good rp and funny jokes. Being able to stack them keeps people motivated to be active in rp, even when they have one, and awarding them for jokes keeps the atmosphere light and fun, even when dealing with grim subject matter.
MVP. The players vote for someone to receive an XP bonus at the end of the session. This is supposed to be for something cool they did during the session. It explicitly can't be because they need the XP to hit the next level or something. It has to be because of something they've done.
That's fine in games like WFRP4 where individual XP has no direct bearing on anything else, but D&D 5e relies on every PC having the same XP - it's effectively passingly stated throught relevant sections of the PHB, DMG, and XGtE. You really want all your players to be at the same level in 5e...
@@ChapterGrim My experience, both as a player and a DM, has been that the characters can be somewhat out of synch with each other without it causing any issues.
You know what I like about this… The suggestions that make an intangible thing tangible. There is so much theatre of the mind in this game, even when you are using terrain and minis. Both the physical coin and the using of others dice for adv/dis is awesome. Something simple and you can touch. Shit like that keeps people off their phones.
The using other people's dice also really makes it feel like they're "helping" on checks instead of just taking the help action. I love making things more real
My best house rule has gone over so well, not only have I used in every game I've run in the last 40 years, I was able to Kevin Bacon style trace it being used by a group of players I had never met, but they knew exactly how it had made it to them. "All mistakes final"
Drinking a health potion as a bonus action where they roll as normal. However, if they use their action to drink the potion they get its full benefits and regain max health from it.
I like that they can decide to get a full heal or hope for a good roll for the HP. Like do they want to inflict damage and heal a little or get the full amount of HP from the potion. More tactical choices to make.
@@norandomnumbersminimum heal is practically just eating dirt y’know. Healing Potion: 4 Healing Greater Healing: 8 Healing Superior Healing: 16 Healing Supreme Healing: 30 healing I’d be incredibly sad if I spent like 100GP and a party member drank it for just 8 healing
@@enderex040 I know. But that's actually an interesting decision. Are you desperate enough to drink it for minimum, or are you going to waste your action in combat to roll. Potions should be saved to bring up downed allies and to heal between encounters when there's no time for a short rest or all hit dice are already spent.
Shields issue is that since it's a first level spell slot it is very easily spamable once you get past the very early levels. By level 5 you can replace your first level spells with cantrip damage for the most part freeing them up and have access to much better 3rd level spells and some second level spells. Shield may last only the one round but it still means you get the benefit from any multi-attacks a creature has as well as the attacks of the rest of it's buddies if you get ganged up on, and as a caster you usually will have a means to get out of melee, even if it means just blasting the attacker. Wizards are backrow and have the versatility to ensure they have some form of avoiding being attacked, that one round of protection is really all they need. Odds are they aren't going to be taking an attacked for more than 3-4 rounds before their next long rest, which means they may as well have that +5 indefinitely for all it matters. There's a few ways to change up Shield to make it a bit more balanced. One I saw was it just gives disadvantage instead of a bonus. Another was that it only lasts against a single attack instead of a round. One I thought was good was that you remove the part of the spell where you can cast it after the attack check so the wizard actually has some penalty for their low AC since it increases the chances of just blowing the spell.
I use a lot of house rules. You can case multiple levelled spells per turn, martials get battle maneuvers, homebrew subclasses, etc. But my favorite is how I do inspiration. Basically, I give them out for lots of things. Everyone shows up on time, someone makes me laugh or impresses me, reminds me of a rule to their detriment, and instead of just advantage, it's a reroll after you see the roll but before you know the result. _Also,_ you can spend more at a time to get other benefits. Asking a question in game and getting a cryptic answer, lowering the prices in items, finding magic items, whatever my players can think of and I think is fair for a given number of points. There's no limit to how many you can collect, so inspiration is an integral part of my games where my players have to decide whether to use it to get through little problems all the time or save it up for something big
As an interesting note, it's established RAI in D&D 5e that reality applies as expected unless RAW makes an exception somehow. 4d6 minus the lowest is legit the statistically best way to generate stats in 5e RAW, if the player doesn't like what they rolled I'd just let them use point buy...
In our Pathfinder game: 1: 10 words per round for a character, +10 if you trade in your action or move and +5 for your quick action! 2: If you go below 0hp, the after being brought back above 0hp, but less than max hp, you are out for aa number of rounds equal to how far below 0 you went! 3: Luck Values: (-7) - 24 -Expenditure 1d4 Luck (Must have at least 1 positive Luck Point): You may use Luck to affect one event brought about by an action you take or one that directly affects you. (Examples: Hjalmar using Luck to make Admiral Blood fail a save against a spell HE cast. Timbo using Luck to disarm Admiral Blood. Slayn using luck to make a save vs Zone of Truth which he was affected by. Combat Rewind a la Rick vs. Pixies) -Expenditure (1d4) x2 Luck (Must have at least 1 positive Luck Point): You may use luck to affect one event brought about by someone else's action which has no direct impact on you. (Examples: Bob using luck to rewind Slayn's fireball thus saving 3/4s of the party, but having no effect on him because of evasion. Using luck to make the Shin ship's guns misfire. They were targeting the ship not one individual.) -Every time you advance a level, roll luck as per the table below. ADD this to your previous total up to the maximum defined below. Hopefully this will prevent Luck dump battles right before you advance. Player Luck Player Level Luck Roll Max Luck 1 1d4 4 2-3 1d6 10 4-7 2d4 16 8-15 3d6 20 16-20 4d6 24
I feel like limiting words in combat is iffy in my head, but in my heart, as someone who's running a game with 8 players... I get it lmao. That luck system is pretty great tbh
@@twistedpinttavern The word limit makes us think about what we are going say in character and makes sense for 6 seconds. The luck system really adds a sense of the dramatic to the game and has saved characters so many times! : )
A couple I've been dying to try: A way to get players to move more and not stay in one place. The cause of this I found was the threat of opporunity attacks keeping players in place. So I propose two ways to get out of opporunity attack range: Acrobatics or Athletics check. OR if a ally is next to an enemy, one player can move safety away from that enemy because they are "Distracted" Also a couple potion ones where a full action restores the max die, bonus action rolls to heal, or action to toss a potion to a player and they can heal at the cost of that givers action.
Level Based Crits. When you roll a Critical hit, you add your level in damage to the attack, or Double your Level if it is a Class focus. So, Double Level would be for weapon attacks for Fighters, Rogues, etc. Warlocks would get Double Level on Eldritch Blast, but someone who picked up Eldritch Blast from a feat wouldn't. I am moving toward the Shadowdark principle of "Let the Class be the best at what that class is supposed to do."
I got NO notification on here about this vid (even though the bell is clicked) and it's only JUST now making it to my feed 3 days late. Hmm...kinda wondering what's going on there. Welp. Guess it's time to start manually going to your channel daily since YT is being a jerk. Another great video
Another banger, Zyl! Thanks so much for adding to my morning! The DMs dice are absolutely a conduit for curse! A player willingly taking them? That's... indoctrination! And brilliant!! My favourite house rule has been when a friend ran a pirate campaign, when we were making characters in session 0 the DM told us after each session we could nominate eachother for a small (usually about 25/75) bonus to our experience. It really got the players invested in trying to do awesome things, and hearing a whole table of people who were introverted nerds (we love them!) Go absolutely nuts when that rogue nat20 prevented a tpk, and everyone hollering about "GIVE HIM THE EXP! GIVE HIM THE BONUS!" was honestly incredible. A house rule of my own is, if you roll more than 5 nat 1s in a session, you have a d8 inspiration next session. Failing all your rolls can suck, but getting a sense of reward seems to take the sting out.
Thanks for the kind words! That XP bonus thing is cool, and seems to be used a lot more than I knew! And for the Nat 1s thing, I think they still need to be bad overall, but having a little benefit makes it feel better than just a total loss. That's why the coin inspiration works so well I think, because it adds that potential benefit. Your system is cool, too! I'll have to try it
Alrighty i have a 2 actually 1 better healing i allow my player to take a healing potion as a bonus action is a roll but taking it as a action is heal full amount and 2 revival degradation over time as thier revived their body deteriorates so they can't keep coming back gives death a bit more of a oh no to it
I think in 2e there was a rule where every time you were brought back from the dead, your constitution was permanently lowered by 1. This also meant there was a cap to the number of times you could be brought back before it just stopped working. I like that rule, personally!
I like crunchy crits at high levels but at lower levels it's absolutely nasty and swingy. An alternative I want to try is basically having crits be "advantage on damage" so roll the dice twice and double the higher value.
In my game, when a PC reaches 0 hit points, they remain conscious, still making death saves at the start of each of their turns. They can take an action or bonus action on their turn, cannot take reactions, and they're movement speed is halved. When they get two failed death saves, the PC falls unconscious. I also secretly roll death saves, so this is the only way the players know things are getting bad. Otherwise, no one likes being at 0 HP. Also, when a PC at 0 HP reduces another creature to 0 HP, they gain a successful death save. I call this the "Fight For Your Life" system inspired by Borderlands.
The most popular rule in my games is the "Copy Roll". Because Roll20 has derpy nights a copy roll or two of the same number shows on your roll this will be counted as a nat20. If its 20/20 then your roll will be one of the following: - Your attack is a x4 crit and does max damage. - I'll more or less give you my notes on what you are investigating. - You can save the 2nd 20 to swap a crit in the future. If its a 1/1 then may the dice gods show mercy on you because this will hurt. Should you get one of these Copy Rolls when interacting with NPCs your rolls will carry a sense of permanence to them. Examples: - Your character is treated differently than your fellow party members. - The NPCs will permanently respond to you based off this roll.
a certain DM I played with played games with the triple crit kill rule only had it actually happen once, what was supposed to be an early encounter with the BBEG for a "your not worth my time type encounter" opening attack on bbeg triple crit, Good Game real short.
Shield spell is hardly a tradeoff - handful of spells are as good as Shield. Goodberry is considered to be good healing spell with only 10 hit points of healing, and Shield can block (basically as good as heal, if not better) much more for just a reaction and it only become better with levels.
I think why I don't see shield as being as busted as some other spells is how easy it is to get around. A single AoE caster defeats shield every time, for example. But I definitely see how it can be super powerful in the right game
Here's a broken spell combo: use your action to cast Mirror Image, and your Bonus action to cast Sanctuary. Yeah, Sanctuary ends if you take a hostile action, however the chances of getting hit are so low that, if you're the squishy caster, you're probably not taking any damage
So what is the character doing during combat? That also takes two turns, if you cast a bonus action spell you can only cast a cantrip with a casting time of one action. Combat on average lasts 3 turns, and you've just spent two of those three turns doing nothing.
We did the crit thing, but then i the DM couldn't stop rolling crits. So the table decided nobody got to use the rule (they 100% themselves felt that if I couldn't do it, why should they get to?).
Join the server, it's a lot of fun in there. You can interact with a lot of people about D&D and other things that you want to talk about. You might even be able to help with making it better.
Never forget level 18 Wizards. They can get infinite Shield (or Absorb Elements, depending on their preference, and can even change by spending some time studying iirc) That said, I'm not a fan of caster nerfs aside from one possibility: if one is casting a spell, some NPC interrupts to counterspell you, and you try to counterspell the counterspell to protect your main spell... I'm open to the idea of that requiring a Concentration save (I'm thinking a DC of 10 + spell level ) or you lose the spell regardless of the double-counterspell result. Why am I not opposed to that? Cause you're interrupting one spell to cast another mid-cast, then trying to go back to the first spell like nothing happened.
My favorite counterspell house rule is that if a counterspell is counterspelled, a wild magic surge happens. Completely unnecessary, but kinda makes sense, and is a lot of fun!
Shield is too powerful for a level 1 spell. Maybe it could be an upcastable spell, with bonus of +2 plus 1 per spell level. Treantmonk's Temple describes a game in which he experimented with just 3 houserules, and one of them was banning shield. If someone who makes their bread and butter with optimization says a spell should be banned because it is too powerful, that is telling.
I jumped back and forth about that house rule until Bob World Builder demonstrated that it was extremely difficult to drink a potion within six seconds. It included removing the cap.
Most people's argument is that the DMG says it's only one ounce, but one, pictures often show them as larger in official art, and two, you still have to consider grabbing, uncorking, drinking, and still being combat ready. I think it's fine if people do a bonus action, but I personally just think an action is fine and makes sense. Especially because some potions are VERY powerful to just do in one bonus action
@@twistedpinttavern It probably depend on the campaign and play style. The players asked for it, because they are seen it on Critical Role and it wasn't a problem in the campaign we were playing. It's not realistic to run, drink a potion and attack all in a 6 second turn, but in my game the length of the turns isn't a accurate thing, they are just about 6 seconds on average.
@@twistedpinttavern Saddest part, in my mind, is that we never got a proper video game of it. Sure, that Neverwinter game uses some terms from it, but they're all used wrong and the mechanics don't even remotely resemble the actual game... We need to turn to other games, like X-Com, Pirate101, or Trials of Fire if we want a similar experience (and even those aren't really perfect as the games that do have a variety of per-fight abilities generally include some randomness in which cards you have access to in any given fight)
I use that crit rule and it is much better than the regular crits that can do less damage than a normal hit. Crits should always do more than a normal hit - if it doesn't, it's a normal hit and not a crit. Point buy sucks and makes cookie cutter characters. Rolling for stats never breaks the game. Counterspell deserves a house rule. Anything that makes an archmage useless for an entire combat is broken. Death saves should be made when someone checks on you.
"If common sense makes more sense and is cooler than RAW, common sense wins", is a houserule I absolutely hate. It has led to some of the worst moments in games I have played.
I hate most of these. I like the idea of improved stat stuff, but I prefer other methods. One example would be to just give players a Feat AND an ASI every time they would normally get to choose. The recap rewards are good house rules. Common sense over RAW sounds good if it's used correctly. I despise the idea of banning Shield and Counterspell. I would simply not play at that table. The stronger crits add too much chaos, and discriminating against Rogues when they already struggle to keep up with other martials is just unacceptable. I do like that it boosts martials a little compared to casters, though. Casting spells for exhaustion is... eh. I don't like it, but I don't think I would necessarily reject a table for this house rule. Death saves are stressful enough as is. Don't forget that nat1's count as two failures, and enemies can target fallen comrades to secure the kill. (I would remove waking up with 1 HP at a nat20 though, someone who is downed should stay downed unless healed by external factors.)
crunchy crits do get a bit too crazy, I had to remove them from my campaign because basically every time a crunchy crit happened, a player or enemy instantly died. If you use them definitely only let players get them.
What are your favorite house rules? Let me know in the comments!
I really love the idea of having a secret death save BUT also letting the player roll it.
It's the best hybrid in my opinion, gives suspense but keeps them involved.
One House Rule I implemented that I absolutely love is Inspiring Criticals. I’m not sure what the official terminology is but basically, whenever a character rolls a Natural 20 they can choose one character that has line of sight of them to gain Inspiration. I’ve added a couple extra things players can use Inspiration for but I’ve loved seeing my players rp their crits and describing how they Inspire their comrades. I’m considering adding Crunchy Crits atop of it and I think I just might! Hopefully it doesn’t get crazy
One of my favorite house rules is the ability to stack dm inspirations up to 3 times, and to award them based off off good rp and funny jokes. Being able to stack them keeps people motivated to be active in rp, even when they have one, and awarding them for jokes keeps the atmosphere light and fun, even when dealing with grim subject matter.
MVP. The players vote for someone to receive an XP bonus at the end of the session. This is supposed to be for something cool they did during the session. It explicitly can't be because they need the XP to hit the next level or something. It has to be because of something they've done.
This is a great way to give some bonus XP in games that use it instead of milestone!
That's fine in games like WFRP4 where individual XP has no direct bearing on anything else, but D&D 5e relies on every PC having the same XP - it's effectively passingly stated throught relevant sections of the PHB, DMG, and XGtE. You really want all your players to be at the same level in 5e...
And that reward is literally what inspiration is for...
@@ChapterGrim My experience, both as a player and a DM, has been that the characters can be somewhat out of synch with each other without it causing any issues.
You know what I like about this…
The suggestions that make an intangible thing tangible. There is so much theatre of the mind in this game, even when you are using terrain and minis. Both the physical coin and the using of others dice for adv/dis is awesome. Something simple and you can touch. Shit like that keeps people off their phones.
The using other people's dice also really makes it feel like they're "helping" on checks instead of just taking the help action. I love making things more real
My best house rule has gone over so well, not only have I used in every game I've run in the last 40 years, I was able to Kevin Bacon style trace it being used by a group of players I had never met, but they knew exactly how it had made it to them.
"All mistakes final"
I feel like that hits the DM more than the players lol. But I like it!
Drinking a health potion as a bonus action where they roll as normal. However, if they use their action to drink the potion they get its full benefits and regain max health from it.
I like that they can decide to get a full heal or hope for a good roll for the HP. Like do they want to inflict damage and heal a little or get the full amount of HP from the potion. More tactical choices to make.
Should be rolling for an action, minimum heal for bonus action.
@@norandomnumbersminimum heal is practically just eating dirt y’know.
Healing Potion: 4 Healing
Greater Healing: 8 Healing
Superior Healing: 16 Healing
Supreme Healing: 30 healing
I’d be incredibly sad if I spent like 100GP and a party member drank it for just 8 healing
@@enderex040 I know. But that's actually an interesting decision. Are you desperate enough to drink it for minimum, or are you going to waste your action in combat to roll. Potions should be saved to bring up downed allies and to heal between encounters when there's no time for a short rest or all hit dice are already spent.
Shields issue is that since it's a first level spell slot it is very easily spamable once you get past the very early levels. By level 5 you can replace your first level spells with cantrip damage for the most part freeing them up and have access to much better 3rd level spells and some second level spells. Shield may last only the one round but it still means you get the benefit from any multi-attacks a creature has as well as the attacks of the rest of it's buddies if you get ganged up on, and as a caster you usually will have a means to get out of melee, even if it means just blasting the attacker.
Wizards are backrow and have the versatility to ensure they have some form of avoiding being attacked, that one round of protection is really all they need. Odds are they aren't going to be taking an attacked for more than 3-4 rounds before their next long rest, which means they may as well have that +5 indefinitely for all it matters.
There's a few ways to change up Shield to make it a bit more balanced. One I saw was it just gives disadvantage instead of a bonus. Another was that it only lasts against a single attack instead of a round. One I thought was good was that you remove the part of the spell where you can cast it after the attack check so the wizard actually has some penalty for their low AC since it increases the chances of just blowing the spell.
I think exhaustion for spells beyond or when you are out works better if you port over OneDnDs 10 levels of exhaustion
I use a lot of house rules. You can case multiple levelled spells per turn, martials get battle maneuvers, homebrew subclasses, etc. But my favorite is how I do inspiration. Basically, I give them out for lots of things. Everyone shows up on time, someone makes me laugh or impresses me, reminds me of a rule to their detriment, and instead of just advantage, it's a reroll after you see the roll but before you know the result. _Also,_ you can spend more at a time to get other benefits. Asking a question in game and getting a cryptic answer, lowering the prices in items, finding magic items, whatever my players can think of and I think is fair for a given number of points. There's no limit to how many you can collect, so inspiration is an integral part of my games where my players have to decide whether to use it to get through little problems all the time or save it up for something big
Makes it more like a currency than a single mechanic, that's cool! Also allows the players to influence the game a bit more
As an interesting note, it's established RAI in D&D 5e that reality applies as expected unless RAW makes an exception somehow. 4d6 minus the lowest is legit the statistically best way to generate stats in 5e RAW, if the player doesn't like what they rolled I'd just let them use point buy...
In our Pathfinder game:
1: 10 words per round for a character, +10 if you trade in your action or move and +5 for your quick action!
2: If you go below 0hp, the after being brought back above 0hp, but less than max hp, you are out for aa number of rounds equal to how far below 0 you went!
3: Luck Values: (-7) - 24
-Expenditure 1d4 Luck (Must have at least 1 positive Luck Point): You may use Luck to affect one event brought about by an action you take or one that directly affects you. (Examples: Hjalmar using Luck to make Admiral Blood fail a save against a spell HE cast. Timbo using Luck to disarm Admiral Blood. Slayn using luck to make a save vs Zone of Truth which he was affected by. Combat Rewind a la Rick vs. Pixies)
-Expenditure (1d4) x2 Luck (Must have at least 1 positive Luck Point): You may use luck to affect one event brought about by someone else's action which has no direct impact on you. (Examples: Bob using luck to rewind Slayn's fireball thus saving 3/4s of the party, but having no effect on him because of evasion. Using luck to make the Shin ship's guns misfire. They were targeting the ship not one individual.)
-Every time you advance a level, roll luck as per the table below. ADD this to your previous total up to the maximum defined below. Hopefully this will prevent Luck dump battles right before you advance.
Player Luck
Player Level Luck Roll Max Luck
1 1d4 4
2-3 1d6 10
4-7 2d4 16
8-15 3d6 20
16-20 4d6 24
I feel like limiting words in combat is iffy in my head, but in my heart, as someone who's running a game with 8 players... I get it lmao.
That luck system is pretty great tbh
@@twistedpinttavern The word limit makes us think about what we are going say in character and makes sense for 6 seconds.
The luck system really adds a sense of the dramatic to the game and has saved characters so many times! : )
A couple I've been dying to try: A way to get players to move more and not stay in one place. The cause of this I found was the threat of opporunity attacks keeping players in place.
So I propose two ways to get out of opporunity attack range: Acrobatics or Athletics check.
OR if a ally is next to an enemy, one player can move safety away from that enemy because they are "Distracted"
Also a couple potion ones where a full action restores the max die, bonus action rolls to heal, or action to toss a potion to a player and they can heal at the cost of that givers action.
Level Based Crits. When you roll a Critical hit, you add your level in damage to the attack, or Double your Level if it is a Class focus. So, Double Level would be for weapon attacks for Fighters, Rogues, etc. Warlocks would get Double Level on Eldritch Blast, but someone who picked up Eldritch Blast from a feat wouldn't. I am moving toward the Shadowdark principle of "Let the Class be the best at what that class is supposed to do."
Interesting. So your crits get better as you level up, and it incentivizes sticking to a particular class and combat style
I got NO notification on here about this vid (even though the bell is clicked) and it's only JUST now making it to my feed 3 days late. Hmm...kinda wondering what's going on there. Welp. Guess it's time to start manually going to your channel daily since YT is being a jerk. Another great video
That's odd, but I'm glad you made it to this one! Classic YT, lol
Another banger, Zyl! Thanks so much for adding to my morning!
The DMs dice are absolutely a conduit for curse! A player willingly taking them? That's... indoctrination! And brilliant!!
My favourite house rule has been when a friend ran a pirate campaign, when we were making characters in session 0 the DM told us after each session we could nominate eachother for a small (usually about 25/75) bonus to our experience. It really got the players invested in trying to do awesome things, and hearing a whole table of people who were introverted nerds (we love them!) Go absolutely nuts when that rogue nat20 prevented a tpk, and everyone hollering about "GIVE HIM THE EXP! GIVE HIM THE BONUS!" was honestly incredible.
A house rule of my own is, if you roll more than 5 nat 1s in a session, you have a d8 inspiration next session. Failing all your rolls can suck, but getting a sense of reward seems to take the sting out.
Thanks for the kind words! That XP bonus thing is cool, and seems to be used a lot more than I knew! And for the Nat 1s thing, I think they still need to be bad overall, but having a little benefit makes it feel better than just a total loss. That's why the coin inspiration works so well I think, because it adds that potential benefit. Your system is cool, too! I'll have to try it
Alrighty i have a 2 actually 1 better healing i allow my player to take a healing potion as a bonus action is a roll but taking it as a action is heal full amount and 2 revival degradation over time as thier revived their body deteriorates so they can't keep coming back gives death a bit more of a oh no to it
I think in 2e there was a rule where every time you were brought back from the dead, your constitution was permanently lowered by 1. This also meant there was a cap to the number of times you could be brought back before it just stopped working. I like that rule, personally!
I like crunchy crits at high levels but at lower levels it's absolutely nasty and swingy. An alternative I want to try is basically having crits be "advantage on damage" so roll the dice twice and double the higher value.
That's not a bad idea, let me know how it goes!
In my game, when a PC reaches 0 hit points, they remain conscious, still making death saves at the start of each of their turns. They can take an action or bonus action on their turn, cannot take reactions, and they're movement speed is halved. When they get two failed death saves, the PC falls unconscious. I also secretly roll death saves, so this is the only way the players know things are getting bad. Otherwise, no one likes being at 0 HP. Also, when a PC at 0 HP reduces another creature to 0 HP, they gain a successful death save. I call this the "Fight For Your Life" system inspired by Borderlands.
When you roll a critical take down AC and roll damage
The most popular rule in my games is the "Copy Roll".
Because Roll20 has derpy nights a copy roll or two of the same number shows on your roll this will be counted as a nat20.
If its 20/20 then your roll will be one of the following:
- Your attack is a x4 crit and does max damage.
- I'll more or less give you my notes on what you are investigating.
- You can save the 2nd 20 to swap a crit in the future.
If its a 1/1 then may the dice gods show mercy on you because this will hurt.
Should you get one of these Copy Rolls when interacting with NPCs your rolls will carry a sense of permanence to them. Examples:
- Your character is treated differently than your fellow party members.
- The NPCs will permanently respond to you based off this roll.
a certain DM I played with played games with the triple crit kill rule only had it actually happen once, what was supposed to be an early encounter with the BBEG for a "your not worth my time type encounter" opening attack on bbeg triple crit, Good Game real short.
Shield spell is hardly a tradeoff - handful of spells are as good as Shield. Goodberry is considered to be good healing spell with only 10 hit points of healing, and Shield can block (basically as good as heal, if not better) much more for just a reaction and it only become better with levels.
I think why I don't see shield as being as busted as some other spells is how easy it is to get around. A single AoE caster defeats shield every time, for example. But I definitely see how it can be super powerful in the right game
a house rule for shield could be it only works if you're not wearing armour. Mage armour and natural race armour count as no armour.
Here's a broken spell combo: use your action to cast Mirror Image, and your Bonus action to cast Sanctuary. Yeah, Sanctuary ends if you take a hostile action, however the chances of getting hit are so low that, if you're the squishy caster, you're probably not taking any damage
So what is the character doing during combat? That also takes two turns, if you cast a bonus action spell you can only cast a cantrip with a casting time of one action. Combat on average lasts 3 turns, and you've just spent two of those three turns doing nothing.
We did the crit thing, but then i the DM couldn't stop rolling crits. So the table decided nobody got to use the rule (they 100% themselves felt that if I couldn't do it, why should they get to?).
Remeber, even a level 20 character only has one turn...
Quite a powerful turn, but only the one!
Removed Attunement limit. nuff said.
Join the server, it's a lot of fun in there. You can interact with a lot of people about D&D and other things that you want to talk about. You might even be able to help with making it better.
This person is not a paid actor, I swear... But they are correct!
I really am not. I am just one of the people that are apart of the server
I allow for the people to roll for health on their level up with advantage. Everyone hates it when they leveled up with one new additional HP.
I just say when it comes to health, reroll all ones. Level up HP, healing spells and potions, etc
Never forget level 18 Wizards. They can get infinite Shield (or Absorb Elements, depending on their preference, and can even change by spending some time studying iirc)
That said, I'm not a fan of caster nerfs aside from one possibility: if one is casting a spell, some NPC interrupts to counterspell you, and you try to counterspell the counterspell to protect your main spell... I'm open to the idea of that requiring a Concentration save (I'm thinking a DC of 10 + spell level ) or you lose the spell regardless of the double-counterspell result. Why am I not opposed to that? Cause you're interrupting one spell to cast another mid-cast, then trying to go back to the first spell like nothing happened.
My favorite counterspell house rule is that if a counterspell is counterspelled, a wild magic surge happens. Completely unnecessary, but kinda makes sense, and is a lot of fun!
Shield is too powerful for a level 1 spell. Maybe it could be an upcastable spell, with bonus of +2 plus 1 per spell level. Treantmonk's Temple describes a game in which he experimented with just 3 houserules, and one of them was banning shield. If someone who makes their bread and butter with optimization says a spell should be banned because it is too powerful, that is telling.
Good stuff!!
The only house rule I use is very boring, but I think it's the most used: Drink a potion as a bonus action
Simple, but very popular!
I jumped back and forth about that house rule until Bob World Builder demonstrated that it was extremely difficult to drink a potion within six seconds. It included removing the cap.
Most people's argument is that the DMG says it's only one ounce, but one, pictures often show them as larger in official art, and two, you still have to consider grabbing, uncorking, drinking, and still being combat ready. I think it's fine if people do a bonus action, but I personally just think an action is fine and makes sense. Especially because some potions are VERY powerful to just do in one bonus action
@@twistedpinttavern It probably depend on the campaign and play style. The players asked for it, because they are seen it on Critical Role and it wasn't a problem in the campaign we were playing.
It's not realistic to run, drink a potion and attack all in a 6 second turn, but in my game the length of the turns isn't a accurate thing, they are just about 6 seconds on average.
Worst house rule in the game. Absolutely awful. 0/5
You 'member when "crunchy crits" were RAW for specific weapons in 4e? I 'member...
4e was such a wild ride lol
@@twistedpinttavern Saddest part, in my mind, is that we never got a proper video game of it. Sure, that Neverwinter game uses some terms from it, but they're all used wrong and the mechanics don't even remotely resemble the actual game... We need to turn to other games, like X-Com, Pirate101, or Trials of Fire if we want a similar experience (and even those aren't really perfect as the games that do have a variety of per-fight abilities generally include some randomness in which cards you have access to in any given fight)
Critical fumbles are awful. Instant red-flag for me as a player to dip out of that group immediately.
I do rolling the dice nothing lower than 10
As in the players can't roll lower than a 10?
I use that crit rule and it is much better than the regular crits that can do less damage than a normal hit. Crits should always do more than a normal hit - if it doesn't, it's a normal hit and not a crit.
Point buy sucks and makes cookie cutter characters. Rolling for stats never breaks the game.
Counterspell deserves a house rule. Anything that makes an archmage useless for an entire combat is broken.
Death saves should be made when someone checks on you.
That death saves one is interesting, I kinda like it!
"If common sense makes more sense and is cooler than RAW, common sense wins", is a houserule I absolutely hate.
It has led to some of the worst moments in games I have played.
I hate most of these.
I like the idea of improved stat stuff, but I prefer other methods. One example would be to just give players a Feat AND an ASI every time they would normally get to choose.
The recap rewards are good house rules. Common sense over RAW sounds good if it's used correctly.
I despise the idea of banning Shield and Counterspell. I would simply not play at that table.
The stronger crits add too much chaos, and discriminating against Rogues when they already struggle to keep up with other martials is just unacceptable. I do like that it boosts martials a little compared to casters, though.
Casting spells for exhaustion is... eh. I don't like it, but I don't think I would necessarily reject a table for this house rule.
Death saves are stressful enough as is. Don't forget that nat1's count as two failures, and enemies can target fallen comrades to secure the kill. (I would remove waking up with 1 HP at a nat20 though, someone who is downed should stay downed unless healed by external factors.)
crunchy crits do get a bit too crazy, I had to remove them from my campaign because basically every time a crunchy crit happened, a player or enemy instantly died. If you use them definitely only let players get them.
Yeah I think they sound great on paper, but could just be too powerful