Davvy's Guide to Homebrew 

When you homebrew monopoly into a battle royal game

My personal rule of thumb is that if a player wants to play a homebrew class that is terribly overpowered I’ll work with the player to make it more balanced but still keep the feel of what the class was made to be.

I personally like to make the Dragonborns breath weapon damage scale better, so that it will remain a viable option for player's to keep using their racial feat and actually feel like a dragonborn when playing.

ah homebrew, at first its a way to add your favorite race or class from a series you like and then later its a way to have an adventure where a wizard power ranger dragonborn can cast eldritch blast on a beholder with a stand

Something that I've noticed with homebrew subclasses: the less anime and edgy the class is, the better chance it has of not being gamebreakingly strong and has a good chance of being something your DM will allow.

Some of the best, most balanced homebrews I've seen are the Avatar-style bending classes on d&d wiki. They have them for 3.5 & 5th. I played a waterbender cleric thanks to the good synergy (healing, holy water in combat, and wisdom as saving throw). His name was Laughing McLovedaddy, and he was a psychotic gnome with a compulsion to vent his violent rage on the various evil creatures of the world. Because of his homicidal inclinations and mental instability, the Gnome god Garl Glittergold decided it was just best to let him to attack fiends, the undead, and any other evil creatures that were threatening a gnome community. Thus, Laughing had just enough training to qualify as a cleric (level 1) and compensated by using waterbending to perform most of his divine duties. At one point, Laughing decided to get a bag of holding and fill it with holy water for battle. He was in a city at the time though, and being a lawful good character he was conscientious of the fact that water was a commodity in that setting rather than a natural resource open to all. Wondering where he could get enough water to bless and fill his bag without stealing any, he asked the other party members for their thoughts. The assassin suggested the sewer, and that's when things went sideways. Getting the water from the sewer was no problem. Garl Glittergold's sense of humor was. See, we covered for a night I had to miss by saying that Garl brought Laughing to his realm for a special task. The DM and I decided that this task would be to take part in a typical gnome prank. Garl loved the idea of a bag of holding filled with holy sewer water for cutting fiends to ribbons, and he saw that after leaving the city my party traveled to Asmodeus' capital in the Ninth Hell. So he thought it would be hilarious if he had the best gnomish tinkerers build a statue of Asmodeus to deliver to his throne room, but magically hidden within the statue was an ocean's worth of holy turd water (also made by the gnomes, from start to finish if you follow me). It was set to a hidden timer that would cause the statue to explode and engulf the Ninth Hell in the nastiest flood imaginable. Laughing McLovedaddy's job was to deliver this statue to Asmodeus as a gift from the gnome race, then leave. To keep everyone involved safe, the statue was "supposed" to erupt in 2,000 years. But Garl/the DM couldn't resist pulling a prank within a prank. So just as my party was leaving Hell, we heard a rumble and smelled a great stench. The ground trembled, and the last thing any of us saw before we left the Nine Hells was a giant brown wave crashing around the corner. The rest of the party had already been suspicious when Laughing suddenly appeared with a statue of Asmodeus and refused to explain anything, so they immediately looked right at him. Asmodeus survived. And that is how the Nine Hells declared war against all gnomekind.

3:05 *2 8* *S T A B* *W O U N D S*

I'd like to point out that your homebrew about identifying spells when you see them cast is already a thing in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Insert joke about stealing someone's patented homebrew recipe.

Most of my Homebrew are backgrounds and weapons: with so many planes, multiverses, and magical fuckery, it's possible to have any feasible history. With weapons, it's usually just a reskin, or a slight tweak of an existing weapon, like a Boomarang dealing less damage, but gaining a return ability. I do love race and class homebrew the most, but my big issue is that I can never seem to figure out the most effective way to finagle them into the lore, even if they mechanically work..

When making your first homebrew creation, start with something with no numerical value (like prestidigitation). Maybe make a cursed magic item that forces the player to speak in a random silly accent until the item is removed.

One home brew rule I use a lot is what I call “holding the line” where anyone wearing a shield that’s between an enemy and an ally and 5ft from their ally can use their bonus action to provide full cover to their ally, it’s very situational but it brings a level of complexity to both ally’s and enemies

This is why you're my favorite D&D Tuber. You don't let bull fly in your campaigns. Gygaxian!

My favorite homebrew is a sawn off shotgun. It has a range of 5 feet and that's it. It's a dex check to avoid it and if failed the target is gored

Look up the Pirate Class Homebrew. I have had several players who wanted to play this. What I saw was the following: A d6 added to every attack on a target after initial at level 1. Essentially a sneak attack without stealth checks. Evasion at level 2 with a different name. Passive +2 to AC which stacks upto +6 against melee at level 6 without feats or fighting styles added. And they can equip shields. Basically Dragon Fear as a bonus action at level 7. When I said no to this, one of my players immediately left my group on session zero. As a result I now tell my players on recruitment I do not do home brew classes.

To those of you who are wondering whether I hate Matt Mercer based on this one video, the answer is simple: .

Best example of bad homebrew " every race gets to be loved ubless its a paladin withthe folk hero trait " like i once had after creating a tiefling folkhero paladin My gm was mean

I do the same thing with giving exhaustion when going unconscious. Though the nerfing of exhaustion might be a good idea on some level. I might make it so only exhaustion gained in that way is gone on a long rest. Or a number of exhaustion levels equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1).

I really like your Arcana copy check. I'd give it to the Sorcerer Class too because it's so starved for available spells. Plus it makes sense that the class of spell-casters who innately understand and weave magic could copy spells on sight

Homebrew to change up game mechanics and rules can be good for a table to make the game more fun/ run better, but player fun should always be priority.

One of my favorite homebrews I've ever encountered was the flashbang for a rogue. It just fits so damn well.

With home brew, you can kill the party with your beholder illithidragon!

I only really make homebrew NPCs. I’ve made custom Guards, Soldiers, Knights, and Monsters. Most of them being stronger than their base but not too strong.

I'm currently playing a homebrew class I found on Dm's Guild and I love it. I'm playing the Witch which when boiled down into simple terms is the spells of wizards and druids with the warlock's spell slots and heavily limited casts of super spells called jinxes. I say limited because until level 9 you can only cast one per short or long rest and at 9 you get to cast 2, but the jinxes are super fun. You can make voodoo dolls, Baba Yaga's Hut at level 13, grow your familiar to make it more battle ready, see your friend or yourself get attack and say "No You!" and on a failed save make the attacker take half the damage they sent your way and if they succeeded the save you still only take half the damage you would have. That's not even touching the subclass covens with their own unique flavors or the Witch Features. Want to play a more healing witch similar to the Wiccan? Then the White Witch Coven of the Full Moon is for you! Want to play a witch that crafts illusions and reveal the lies of the corrupt? Then guess what the Grey Half Moon Witch is right up your alley (this is my coven)! Want to be a battle ready arcane warrior protecting the world from Witch Hunters and misuse of Witchcraft? Head on down to the Green Cresent Moon Coven! Want to sew curses and chaos? Then welcome to the dark side of the moon and become a Dark Witch of the Dark Moon. Want to study forbidden magics piercing the veil and at 14th level gaining a hagform? Well then welcome to the Red Witches of the Coven of the Eclipse. I could go on about the features that witches get, but I think this comment is long enough.

I love you davvy! I've been waiting for a Homebrew guide for so long for my campaign!

Hey Davvy, I love your content. Thank you for making these videos for our viewing pleasure. I'd really like an extensive video on all of your home brew choices. Thanks again!

Im not even a minute in, but "and you will no longer be able to unlock steam achievements" got me good.

Davyus chappius, video on dragonborn

Homebrew that is classes,subclasses, or races are probably the easiest to work on and balance because a simple peer review and comparison can help show where it’s lacking or where its broken or overpowered. While homebrew rules and mechanics are a bit trickier because they are entirely down to preference of the player or gm and practical testing to show if it works or breaks the balance of things. That’s just my 2 cents as someone who has been doing game design for about 2 and a half years now.

I am dipping into Homebrew for the first time, playing a Pendragon -- a class in which you are effectively a Warlock or Cleric serving a Dragon patron. You are either turning into a dragon yourself or you're raising a baby dragon that hatches from an egg at your 3rd level. My DM was cautious but trusted me not to be some crazy min-maxing Munchkin, so I've tried to live up to that. My character takes being a dragon-nanny very very seriously, but he's a coward himself so it gives the DM something to play with; the dragon has heroic impulses, but my character just wants a quiet life.

This is a great outlook on homebrew- too many DMs want to just totally remove or totally unregulate it.

Luke from The DM Lair put me into your channel. Very enjoyable videos so far. This is a really good video. Entertaining and informative.

As someone who plays support Druid, you hurt my soul with the healing spell

Thank you for sharing your home brew preferences! I agree with all of them!

I needed this video. This will help alot with my coming campaign

I made a homebrew dancer class that's designed to be reactive instead of proactive. So in combat, the class sacrifices an action for a more loose and enhanced reaction. On top of that, if anyone rolls a certain number, you get bonus effects as if you're dancing to the rhythm of war. However, doing any of these gives exhaustion. To balance it out, dancers can get rid of exhaustion up to a certain level more easily. This class is more under the DO NOT HOMEBREW list, especially since I did it at the request of a player for the lols. Still, in play tests, it's actually very fun and more heavily tactic-based. Maybe I can eventually turn it into something worth while. Also, I stole Fantasy Age's Stunt mechanics for our D&D campaign. I've got to say it makes combat a lot more interesting!

DM, can I play a furry timelord with the ability to fly and stop time... Oh and has plot armour, all at Lvl 1?!?!

In my D&D games, if a player makes an Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check to search a kitchen and they roll a natural 20, then they find a magical wheel of cheese called enchanted cheese, which acts as a common Potion of Healing.

Anyone have a link to that nightfury home-brew teased at the beginning?

Best home brew is when batman gives the cast spongebob a quest taken on Cthulu and the Dark Lich Booberry

A homebrew rule in our campaign which works pretty good is: If two or more players role the same number for Initiative the one with the higher score one goes first. If atleast two have the same Initiative Score then they roll it out like in the phb suggested. It normally speeds up things and is also pretty fair.

My favorite homebrew is actually a rework of the Ranger class, where instead of being the nature dude with too divergent of a purpose to a class being based around being a hunter of a specific thing. Hunter's Mark is a feature rather than a spell, and it gains more features later on. Favored Enemy becomes the different subclasses (mage hunter, colossus slayer, dragon slayer, etc), and so things that you can logically get from being a hunter of a specific thing can be used for other encounters as a generalized purpose. Dragon slayer, for example, gives you evasion at a later level due to how you should be really good at Dex saves if you specialize in dragons. If your a mage hunter, you become a sort of spellsword. It's a cool class and fun to play as. (If anyone wants to see it, here's the link to it: www.gmbinder.com/share/-LW8NwDOWv6U_41xQnsb )

Home brew easily turns into that one friend who owns Skyrim pearly to mod it to high hell.

I feel like not enough people are appreciating that you give Dragonborn the dragonhide feat for free. I love that so much because I’ve had to waste ability score improvements to give my Dragonborn feats that make him feel more draconic and less like a scaley human with a breath weapon.

3:55 YOU WOT M8?!?! I have to go rebuild something.

Recently I found that AL has poisoned homebrew. My AL group wanted deep rp homebrew game so they got it, the full critical role experience. However they went into the homebrew rp game with AL mindset. They didn't want to RP with npcs but rather push time and time again for combat. Because they didn't RP with npcs the group landed themselves into a hot mess. AL trains people to RP a tactical dice game so when they hit open world of homebrew they are clueless what to do.

I tend to work with rule of cool. So if there’s a rule that I think could be altered to make things a little bit more fun or interesting, then heck yeah. I’ll even allow races and classes that my players may bring- as long as I’ve done my research and edited out excessive amounts of bad juju. And nice work on the negative mod removal and the adjustments to Dragonborn. I totally agree with your choice there.

Great vid!

My Homebrew: "Can I use this Kit Class from AD&D because my old ass is too stubborn to change?"

When I started DMing I allowed a player to play as a class he found online...I was so glad when that character died, it was so overpowered.

I like reading about Japanese mythology and religious developments so a lot of my homebrews tend to revolve around those. Most of them are just thought experiments I found rather fun (like the Yuki-onna, which is terribly unbalanced by pure virtue of being a ghost), but some I do think can actually find a place in a real campaign (say, a shapeshifter like a Tanuki, which I did not actually make yet, or a Kitsune, which I pulled from pathfinder for). I tried making a homebrew wizard subclass for an Onmyouji, though I'm not all too sure how balanced it is exactly. It's nice to have a class that mechanically fits with the stuff you're into, but if a DM says no I don't think there's an issue with re-flavoring existing classes to fit the mold a little better. That is, something like UA's theurgist subclass for wizard might be a good substitute for an Onmyouji or even a conjuration wizard if you want to go hard on the shikigami aspect of them. There is one homebrew thing I might bargain for a bit more aggressively though: Making sorcerers better, either by giving them more known spells (either by sorcerous origin bonus spells, like how pathfinder does it or just giving them more spells known right off the bat. I'd say either way, a total of 23-26 spells sounds pretty good) or by making base sorcerer's class features more powerful. I'm personally a big fan of eschewing materials, which was originally a feat that pathfinder sorcerers got as a bonus that made inexpensive material components a nonissue.

You forgot the fourth reason to add homebrew which is to make your setting more interesting and less generic

I've kinda just stuck to making some magic items. I have a meme or two like a sword that has the spirit of a warrior attached to it since I want a Jojo meme, but then I have stuff like a rocks glass that turns blood to a buffing alcohol. Then I have spells like Poly-Mist so you release a purple mist that can be solidified into objects. Puff it around something and solidify it into a rope to pull it or hang from it. As you level it becomes more durable to a point where you can make basic weaponry such as a dagger to stab with.

Currently sitting on a fully homebrewed setting, heavily homebrewed d&d 5th edition, homebrewed weapons included, Homebrew leveling system, Homebrew ability to get feats, several Homebrew feats in general, and a couple other things I'm completely forgetting about. My document that I keep for Homebrew has reached roughly 26 pages at this point. I'm not sorry.

1:30 Magnus looks like my DM when I do something unexpectedly stupid but it works fantastically.

I just remember when homebrewing was added to my old RIFTS group... let just say.. it turned into a arms race very quickly.

I like your rule regarding rolling 1s. I use something similar and both the enemies and the party members have suffered for it. IMHO as long as the new rule is fair then it's likely fine.

Most of the homebrew I use is a pdf that puts more detail into alchemy and custom backgrounds for the monk because at the start we had no healers in my game

Cool video I use a few homebrew ideas in my game, of course I’m still in 3.5

Glad to see someone else take out the negative ability scores to the kobolds and orcs! It might have worked in 3.5, but when else did 5e have you subtract points from a stat at character creation?

It's funny, I had a player using guns that was happier to crit fail than out archer, because the gun just jams while the archer shot an ally

Ok the exhaustion level thing is pretty cool, totally using it in my tables

I homebrew'd the Kool-Aid Man as a God for a one-shot bc my players pressured me into it, only for the person playing the Kool-Aid Cleric to back out

The only homebrew I really do is a subclass for the fighter that's a gunslinger. Even then, I've been constantly editting it to balance it. I also make custom bosses, but that's mostly just reskined other enemies

Hey man, I see that Blood Hunter shade. Matt Mercer is a great DM and the BH is pretty balanced so I dont get the salt.

I automatically allow players to get their race specific feats at 5th level and introduce race feature scaling where applicable. I also allow all races to mix, it’s basically pick 2 features from any race and you get +1 to the two stats though be prepared to be mocked gnome orcs

So another good example of the first type of homebrew would be making true strike a bonus action instead of a action.

one way I deal with natural armor is splitting it into racial armor and class armor so for example if you are getting natural armor from only a class then that is it, but if you are getting natural armor from a race then you get to choose the racial armor so for example if you are playing a lizard folk but aren't going to use dexterity its okay just use the natural armor from the luxidon which is 12+con modifier however if you didn't know and if you have a class and a race that gives natural armor you can choose any between the class or racial armor this means that a lizard fold barbarian has more choices than normal and potentially a higher armor class

Love the Magnus reference about unexpected consequences

most homebrew I did was letting crows hold knifes and adding birds with shark heads

BTW the exhaustion rule works fine till you get to war forged which are immune to exhaustion and are arguably one of the best races for tanks in D&D 5th edition

I'd love to hear stories of your campaigns.

Davvy Chappy is my spirit animal

I love homebrew if done right, usually when I homebrew its nothing more then some monsters (okay scratch that I had a one shot where all for one monster was homebrewed) because the monsters in the manual didn't quite fit what I wanted Races are another thing but I am very careful with them while I make them (usually I just take them from a friend who's great at it and give credit) I have only used one homebrew mechanic (and a few homebrew skills but I don't think those are big deals) to go along with an optional rule in the dmg which is the sanity stat, I decided to add sanity points to it (basically hp for your mind) where reaching 0 doesnt make you die...just crazy (or turn into a creature)

Personally i've made it so that a 1 on an attack roll only makes a fumble if all the attacks that round are misses (or all fumbles, i'm still working on it to see which is more balanced). That way a lvl 1 martial class or even a high level spellcaster, who don't have much experience with weapons and fighting, are going to fumble while a lvl 20 fighter, a master of his craft (which is killing people with sharpened pieces of metal) will only realistically fumble if the gods are against him.

Three rules about home brews and one suggestion. 1) never change concentration it will break magic in the game. Just giving a second concentration slot will drastically empower magic in the game and make skill and martial characters into sidekicks 2) beware of making any class obsolete by granting core abilities to other classes (Example giving a thief the Rage mechanic or give a barbarian the bard’s jack of all trades. This kind of thing removes the value is a class when the core mechanic is given too easily). Along those same lines, Magic and Ki are special so be really careful not to overpower the Magic vs Skills-martial balance. 3) review changes - When you make changes keep a log of them and every so often or sooner see if they work for your table. Talk to the players if something is not working and why. Maybe you can brainstorm a solution, but if not or you are certain it has failed - kill the change. Even if it is a character class a person is playing, tell them you can’t keep the game going and see if they will change to a new character class. Never punish the table when this happens just try to be fair and make the change reversions or alterations. Lastly, know before you make the changes what the DMG and sometimes what others on the net have to say about the changes you want to make. This is not because everyone is smarter then you but the more minds helping on changes you make before they happen will help you avoid pitfalls.

would you ever make a list of your homebrew ideas? i think what you listed off sound really fair and worth putting into games

Two home rules/mechanics i use are: If you have Expertise in a Skill, gain the proficiency with a related tool set IE Expertise in Nature and you now are proficient when using an herb bag; and Achievements to unlock proficiencies and tools IE roll 10 natural 20s on a acrobatics check to gain proficiency if you don't already. A ton of people might disagree with the Achievement idea, yet i argue that rewarding players for doing things their character either might not specialize in or are forced to do, makes a lot of since. D&D should be organic.

Would love to see a video sbout all of your favorite and least favorite homebrews that you ha e experienced

Some of my Homebrew rules for my sessions include, If you have an Intelligence of 16 or Higher you gain one skill proficiency that's either Intelligence or Wisdom based. On the other hand, if you have an Intelligence of 9 or lower you lose one skill proficiency. For Light Armor, in place of Studded Leather, it'll be Rawhide. Because Studded Leather is stupid and just a made up thing that came from a misinterpretation of Brigandine. Whereas with Rawhide, there have been historical example of Rawhide actually existing (such as with Lamellar).

Here's my homebrew weapon "faine strike blade" (Flavor text: a blade that feels lighter to the user with a scabbard that tightly fits ) Properties: +1 attack per action user can parry as reaction sheething is bonus action Special mechanic: all damage is dealt or received once it's sheethed Damage: xd8 + x + str X= times hits

I'm stealing your exhaustion rule. It's really good.

So far the only homebrew i put into my games are monsters and items.

so basicly, homebrew is when you take the universe of DnD, but change enough to make it look more like your vision for the game? did I got that right? I mean, I get that there is campain books, but I just thought everyone just did whatever it came to mind

@1:30 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA *inhales* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The only really big homebrew rule I use is criticals. Instead if 2x damage its max damage die + straight roll. Because nothing is worse than going great weapon fighter as a melee and then crit to reroll a bunch of 1s, lol

Please do a video on Aarakocra, I have a Monk/Bard with this race I’m playing and I’d like to know MOOOOORE being that it is now my favorite race

Gotta love the moonsh- i mean homebrew

The first ever homebrew I ever asked (pestered, I’ll be honest) my dm at the time to implement was letting me play a race called Half Ghost. Yes, a Danny phantom rip off. That had all his abilities by like level 5 and just got stupider from there. The most recent was “hey can air genasi get like a starter cantrip like only fire and water do cuz wotc doesn’t care about equal balancing” and taking whatever current dm picked that he thought fit.

I honestly used to dive head first into homebrew when I first started playing because i wanted to see the creativity of the playerbase. Then as I got more experienced I avoided it like the plague. Now I'm sorta leveling out on what I will allow/ask the DM if it's okay. Ended up getting a mithral Longsword that has finesse just by asking if that would be alright and I already had the mithral for the blacksmith to use anyways.

So it IS like Payday 2: +Quality of Life fixes and fresh spins old content (HUDs) +Entirely new content available for those willing to work with it and build around it (Overhaul mods, new missions) -Unbalanced crud (Godmode scripts, item spawners) -Meshing natural content with homemade content (XP, world interaction) -Some players don't like it purely for the basis that it is unofficial, which has SOME merit (Autokicking marked players even in false flag cases, only running HoxOut for the 47th time today to grind XP) REALLY good analogy

well my d and d game is a completely new world with my own fictional races and have no classes or alignment

My homebrew used to be classes, because my friends like to play silly shit like rune knight or alchemist or a necromancer Who can make zombies from the very beginning if they can raise rats and stuff so i got really good, real fast, at balancing on the fly whole classes and spells, so naturally i got fed up with 5e and made my own damn system so u could say i homebrewed the whole damn thing so i could play how my table wants

2:07 You missed an opportunity to throw a Chappie robot face onto the Payday character before your own fave when you said "C in Chappy" Oh well. I'll take it! XD

Stop the clock!!! Where did you find the nightfury homebrew, I've been searching for HTTYD homebrew but never found It, Tell me your Secrets

0:08 Elusive, not Illusive.

I really like what you said about arcana checks and wizards, can you elaborate?

Oh no! Don't spice up bedroom... 😏😏😏

I generally only include new monsters to fill my dungeon when the ones in the source materials don’t really fit

Wait what if people choose the speel sniper feat. The feat says you ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover so does that negate the 1-2 role rule in your campaine?

Magnus did nothing wrong!