My 16 (new) Homebrew Rules for D&D 5e 

Sacrificing your paladin powers to save someone is the most paladin thing I have ever heard. Mad Respect.

When Jack said "How many Paladin levels do I have to give up..." I shot up in alarm. In 40 years of roleplaying, I have never heard a player be so selfless, and sacrifice so much for another player. This is a man that you really want running on your team. Well played Jack, well played.

"If you're below half hp, you're considered bloody. If you're below 10hp, you're considered mortal." The level 20 wizard: They're the same picture.

My favorite Homebrew rule is having players describe a moment of their life flashing Before Their Eyes before each death save. Just a brief flashback to a random point in their life either from the adventure or before.

One of my favorite rules is, “I know a guy.”basically once per level you may state the phrase above and quickly sketch out an npc that your character knows who may be able to help. I use this rule so that my players can feel invested in the world and help develop their backstory as we play.

My absolute favorite piece of Homebrew I've cooked up is the Narrative Imperative Roll. It started when the party split for logistical reasons at the end of a major encounter. The Artificer teleported back to the party's base of operations, leaving the Rogue, Wizard and Duskblade to head back to the mainland by boat. Now the boat suffered some damage on the journey and the seagoing half of the party had no way of affecting repairs, so the Rogue asked if maybe he could have thought ahead and pickpocketed the Artificer's magical repair hammer before he left. The Artificer was all for it, and hadn't used his repair hammer since splitting from the party, so it wouldn't break continuity if it turned out that the Rogue had stolen the hammer before the journey. This seemed to me like a very sensible solution to the problem that would keep us from getting bogged down in inconvenient non-plot, so I decided to let the Rogue roll a flat D20 against me, in the open, to see if he had thought ahead. He rolled higher than me, and turned out to have had the hammer all along, saving us about an hour of bullsh*t. We cut briefly to the Artificer in a humorous situation involving a damaged tavern wall, suddenly finding his prized hammer to be missing. From there on out, we've used the Narrative Imperative Roll to make small changes to past events and rules, so long as the changes result in a better game experience and don't break continuity. Most recently, we had a roll to determine whether creatures and items inside an inactive Portable Hole are held in stasis; they aren't.

My favorite homebrew rule that I've done is Druids can change into Chalenge rating zero creatures for free. It encourages them to get creative and it doesnt give them an advantage in combat. Also you can talk to animals regardless of what kind of druid you are but only if you can turn into it. So a level 3 Druid can't talk to fish, but a level 10 Druid can

We've always allowed Strength to be used as a modifier for Intimidation checks. An Ogre isn't necessarily charismatic, but it certainly has the ability to terrify the crap out of someone through sheer force. That a charismatic Halfling Bard could severely outperform some hulking monstrosity because of this has always felt a little wrong.

My brother's game has a rule he's tooling as he goes, which is "going to 0hp does not mean you're unconscious". You fall prone, and you are stunned, but you can crawl 10ft on your turn, and can make one action while you are dying. You still roll death saves, but it can give you the scene where the man you thought you killed manages to drag themselves to the MacGuffin and activate it. But, if you attack the enemy, don't be surprised if they attempt to finish you off for good.

Little homebrew rule I saw on my fyp once, healing potions can be either an action or a bonus action. If you use a bonus action, roll the dice as per normal. If you use an action, you heal the maximum amount instead.

Me and my DM worked on a concept similar to "something lost something gained." The idea was that a player can access an ability from a higher level in their class that they currently are... for a price. I was playing a shadow monk, level 3, with plans to subclass into warlock at the next level. However, when the party was kidnapped, attached to ball and chains and taken to a lake to be drowned with nothing we could do about it, time froze. I heard a voice ask me if I wanted to make a deal to save everyone, and I agreed. Suddenly, about 7 different eldritch blasts fired out of me, freeing my friends and damaging the kidnappers, and a fight ensued, in which I was even permitted to use hexblades curse. . I had officially made my warlock pact in order to get us out of a sticky situation, however, I didn't get to learn the details of my pact. It was such a cool moment!!

In my campaign we have a “maguffin button” that’s a real button the player presses whenever they want to know there they should go. They’re allowed to press it once per session, and the dm gives them every narrative option that makes sense for the situation.

A homebrew rule I have is what I call the “I know a guy” rule. Basically, what it is, is if the party is really stumped/stuck, I will let them create an NPC that they know of that they can get help from. I have final say on whether or not they can come in based on the circumstances, but it gives them a chance to bring something to the world to help them out.

I have a rule in my game called "Routing" where if you're facing off against a large group of enemies that have self preservation instincts and you land a critical hit or roll max damage on a big spell they roll for a fear affect where they run to live another day. It works because the players trigger it by being successful in combat and its just a cool concept to grow their notoriety in the world

Jack just freaking gave me chills when I heard him say how many paladin levels do I have to give up. Holy hell that’s a sacrifice play for the ages

My homebrew rule: if you have resistance to a damage type that comes from two or more different sources, you gain advantage on saving throws against taking that damage type. So now if you’re a tiefling, and find a cool item that gives also fire resistance, you still get some use from that extra resistance

My personal favorite homebrew rules: "Erm Actually" - To avoid Rules Lawyer-ing stopping us, we take a break half way through sessions so people can grab drinks or food, and if a player reaches out to me about a ruling that I got wrong (and I agree that I got it wrong) they get an extra 1d6 they can add to any d20 role for the session. Birthday Bonus! - if we play a session on the week of or the week after your birthday you gain 1D10 that you can add to any role at any time during the session regaurdless of what it is, Had a Level 1 Fighter deal 30 damage in 1 round because of it. 100% Worth it!

Jacob rocking the Critical Role 9 Eyes sweatshirt and looking good it. Also congrats on you and Spencer for having a baby

A friend of mine invented me to play D&D and I was worried about the language barrier (I speek Spanish, I'm from Mexico) but when I see that last sacrifice and the reaction, my heart melted and now I'm not only I'm going to play D&D for first time in my life, I'm going to start learning English more professionally for be able to have a bunch of experience like that one you're amazing dude, I'm not going to lie, that moment almost makes me cry a little ❤️

I kinda have a "Something gained/Something Lost" rule. In our lvl 8 party, the wizard (who was like the figyters little buddy, and best pal) was killed by a warlock in battle. I let the fighter rage from grief out of initiative order, advantage against all spells used against him for 1 in game week, along with doubling his movement speed. As the Warlock ran away and his allies cast spells at the fighter, the fighter completely ignored them, caught up to him, and choked him to death, then went on a rampage massacring the other warlocks, while crying over the death of his only friend. He also RPed disliking all Warlocks from here on out. Never trusting them, and getting a permanent advantage for all saves made against warlocks. In turn, because of his grief, he could not rage for 6 in game months, (The next 8 sessions.)

Hey y’all, I’m Jack, Jacob’s friend from the last part of the video. Some of you guys were asking what the full consequences of my sacrifice were, and I’m here to deliver answers! For context, Laslow was a Vengeance Paladin 6/Echo Knight Fighter 4. I was completely out of spell slots, but even if I had any, I wouldn’t be able to save Kia. The rest of the party was out of reach. I had to do something, or she would die. So I offered up class levels in exchange for the ability to save Kia’s life. Jacob said he cut my levels in half, but I actually lost two levels in each class. I was reduced to Vengeance Paladin 4/Fighter 2 (that’s right, no more subclass). Laslow had expended so much of his power to save Kia that he was now weakened. We leveled up at the end of the session, and I put another level into fighter to get another subclass. But to further lean into the idea that Laslow sacrificed so much to bring Kia back from the brink, I went into Champion instead of Echo Knight, suggesting that he is no longer able to manifest echoes as a result of his sacrifice. Anyway, go check out Arcane Arcade if you haven’t already. This moment with Laslow is just one of many insane situations that has occurred across the many games/campaigns that the crew has played over the last several years!

My favorite homebrew rule is “Bonus Level Up Perks” from the Dungeon Coach here on RU-vid. It’s the idea of the DM making custom abilities for players that you give out on level ups or at key moments in the story, that personalize your players’ characters more. For instance, you have a player that loves the gust cantrip, despite it not doing damage? Give them a perk that makes gust do damage and have a bonus effect too.

I love that someone would sacrifice levels in order to save a friend. I would definitely do that in my games if it came up. It's kind of like a wish spell at lower levels. Much respect for that guy.

The paladin levels clip legitimately gave me full-body chills. I’ve been in campaigns that used bargaining before and it’s never not heart-wrenching.

Homebrew rule: I know a Guy! Once per session a player can ask the dm if they know a specialist or someone involved in something and then they can roll a charisma check (average dc is 15) and they can know a guy. This worked super well for my modern day DnD game where they played detectives in a city. This would help with leads or let them get more information on the city or suspect along with giving more RP opportunities

"Something lost, something gained" also works on a smaller scale. I remember a situation where the party was in a hall of mirrors, and couldn't block the path but also couldn't see the enemies around the corner that were about to move past them to try and grab the artifact they were searching for. The Monk asked if there was a way to try to make an opportunity attack against someone walking past and stop them in their tracks. Technically, they couldn't, but I said that if they spend 3 Ki points, they can gain the Sentinel feat until the end of their next turn. They took the deal, but unfortunately missed on their attack. But it was a reasonable thing for them to try, and the cost they paid was very high. This was a good moment though, since it taught the party the value of stopping enemies movement. The other Monk in the party ended up taking Sentinel and it has come in clutch, especially against flying enemies. If the player has an idea to try something the rules don't let them do normally, let them do it just this once, and let them pay a really high cost for it. Resources you might consider: Ki points, Spell slots, Sorcery points, Magic item charges, Action surge/Second wind, RAGES, Channel Divinities. Remember it should always be absurdly inefficient for someone to do something like this. For example, letting Hrongar the Barbarian use all his rages for the day to scare away all of the goblins except the leader seems like a fair trade, especially when you know this isn't the last fight of the day. It should never be an obvious trade, it has to be risky. Otherwise it will happen too often and it won't be special.

About Crunchy Crits, the Dungeon Dudes offered a pretty simple solution to avoid it being overpowered. You simply add the maximum value of the base weapon damage die (ex: the 2d6 from a greatsword), and not that of special abilities (Sneak Attack, Smite, etc.). Still makes a difference and avoids the disappointment that stems from roling a 1 on a crit! XD

Rule we use that has worked well: When a PC goes to Death Saves and gets revived (healing spell or whatever that pops them up and back into the combat), they come back with 1 level of exhaustion. This gives players a reason to heal each other BEFORE someone goes down, gives a fun mechanical and rp consequence to near death experiences, and prevents combat from feeling like whack-a-mole.

My favorite homebrew rule is the falcon punch. It's pretty simple- as a paladin, you can use divine smite on unarmed strikes. I wouldn't allow it to be used in conjunction with flurry of blows for obvious reasons, but it's mostly just there to allow for flavor stuff like finishing off villains.

A simple Homebrew rule that I use in my games is allowing my PC's to drop their initiative down by whole numbers (min 0). So, if a barbarian who got an initiative of 17 wanted to go after the wizard at 14 he could instead of reading an action and use his reaction to do the readied action. Drop his initiative to 12 for the rest of combat. This allows my players to coordinate better as a team at the tradeoff of letting the monsters go before them sometimes. I do not let my players drop their initiative below 0 and I must be careful with magical effects that last until the players next turn, but this hardly ever comes up and the utility of this rule far outweighs that inconvenience.

I've been doing secret death saves for a while now and it really does make battles more climactic while also cutting down on metagaming. I DM a campaign with a lot of very difficult combat and lots of near-death, and this way people will be more focused on saving their fellow party members from death instead of doing what might be more optimal. Since adding this rule we've had 0 character deaths, since saving a dying party member is always their first priority.

13:51 This moment is so wholesome. So creative and supports rule of cool. Jack made such a statistical sacrifice to make a great story. Respect to this man, and the DM who allowed him to do it.

I really like Seth skorkowsky's encumbrance rule, where it's just an illustration of a backpack, and you have to figure out where all of your inventory fits in order to justify your ability to carry it. That way it doesn't require you to have to do a bunch of math, and it's not quite as rigid, but it's still sets limitations.

Similar to D20's "Box of Doom", I use a spare dice tray for what I dub in my game, the "Tray of Death". Whenever an enemy does an attack that could turn the tide of the battle, an important conversation needs a Persuasion roll, or something that I as the dm dub important and drastic, that roll is made public for the whole table to see and fear.

I use a pretty minor homebrew rule, I can count the number of times it’s come up on one hand. If you roll double nat 20’s with advantage, you get an extra benefit to what you normally would for a nat 20. My favorite is if it happens on an attack roll, instead of a normal crit, you get to roll all the damage dice with advantage

My group’s DM came up with a neat extension of the Inspiration system (we still use RAW Inspiration and there’s a bit of overlap) He created a system called “Deed Points” where if a character attempts or achieves something cool; like jumping out an upper story window to chase a bad guy and not splatting on the ground at 0 HP, or succeeding on a personal quest like getting back a family heirloom that was stolen, then you earn a Deed Point. Now there’s three levels of Deed Point and depending on how cool the thing you tried was, and whether or not you succeeded the point is more or less valuable. There’s Copper, Silver, and Gold points and each point can be used for a different effect -Copper Deed Points can re-roll any die that isn’t a D20 (like a damage die or a bardic inspiration die) -Silver Deed Points can re-roll a D20 -Gold Deed Points can grant you an additional Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction (kind of like and Action Surge) The interesting bit is that you can only have a max of 3 Copper, 3 Silver, and 1 Gold Deed Point, and you can turn 3 Copper into 1 Silver, or 3 Silver into a Gold. So the trick is that if you hoard Deed Points or don’t convert them you could miss out on earning more. So far the system’s working really well and has lead to some neat stuff like when a few of us used our Gold Deed points during a big fight with some Orc raiders to try and keep all their captives alive

Sometimes I have monsters or enemies have 2 ACs, you hit the high one it does full damage, hit the low one it does half damage. It's a way to make your players feel like they're not wasting their turns just failing attacks + having potentially more durable monsters and enemies to add challange

The coin inspiration system is very similar to the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire system of light side/dark side points. At the start of a session you roll to see how many points there are between the players and GM. The GM spends dark side points to give enemies advantage or players disadvantage, while light side points do the opposite but are used by the players. When a point is spent it goes to the other side, players are encouraged to spend them often as they go back and forth. I will add they aren’t as powerful as advantage in 5e, this system doesn’t use d20s.

Fun homebrew rule I use is if a player rolls a natural 20 on initiative, they can choose any number they want after all others have rolled Initiative, and that would essentially be the number they rolled. For example, if they wanted to go immediately after the paladin who rolled a 15, they could choose a 14. They still don’t know what the enemies rolled however, so it makes a fun little risk vs reward minigame. Usually the player just chooses like 1,000’ or something but its nice to give players options

We use chunky crits but we also double damage modifiers, so the damage output is even crazier.

Glad to know I'm not the only person who cares that grease should be flammable. One of my big homebrew rules is patron boons! I love warlocks but what I love more than warlocks is when warlocks get to interact with their patrons, so every time one of my players make a warlock I come up with a basic minor bonus ability based on the specific being that acts as their patron, and then I allow warlocks to barter with their own patrons on occasion to bolster that boon or gain new boons of a similar nature. I think this would actually work really well with the something gained, something lost system you use.

This was an issue the last time. The flanking bonus, though OP don't get me wrong, is not about not being able to SEE both opponents, its about it being hard to defend from opposite sides at once

@XP to Level 3 The name you are looking for at 7:47 for the level up or achievement magic items are called "Living Weapons", they were part of 3.5e except each time the user would level up they would change each level. Take a gander at those they are pretty cool, they also have certain lairs that are tied to those as well. But the achievement items are pretty cool though for interactions with the world.

The one rule I usually go with is multi classing characters can reach max level for all their classes so long as they only have 2, gives level 20 parties a reason to keep playing outside of just enjoying the campaign, and also let’s players try out fun and insane combos. (Plus it’s fun to not have to miss out on a cool feature for your class)

That "Something Lost, Something Gained" rule sounds amazing. In the specific example you gave, it feels like those anime moments where the hero is so desperate that he taps into his heroic resolve to do the impossible, basically going Super Saiyan.

For my group, I've implemented what I've dubbed a "soft crit" which occurs when a player scores 10 above a creature's AC, granting an additional 1d4 of appropriate damage. This dice also scales with proficiency where when you have +3 to proficiency, you now use 1d6, and so on. The only quirk it has is that it is unaffected by regular crits, thus the extra damage die will not double I implemented it after a long campaign as a character with elven accuracy and feeling underwhelmed whenever I kept rolling like a 28 or 31 and having the same effect as someone who rolled a 16. So for, it's promoted lots of collaboration and strategizing, and even if my players don't get a nat 20, there's that extra bit of excitement knowing they at least performed a cool enough attack to warrant a little extra damage.

Flanking being a +2 instead of advantage is a HUGE game changer for the gameplay, and honestly, it leads to a much more balanced play session. Drinking a health potion as a bonus, administering one being an action (I play heavy handed when it comes to combat, my players need the healing and this works exceptionally well if you want to go a bit more "HAM" as a DM) Rule of Cool is always a good option to a point, but if a player wants to do it they can, if they have a plan for it, I lower the DC, if it's a good plan I lower the DC again. A good plan, and quality roleplay. Speaking of Quality Roleplay... If a player is able to roleplay out of a situation, I can and will give it to them. Negotiations, debates, talking their way out of a fight via de-escalation, and in general taking the time to try and roleplay their way through (OR if they're not quite comfortable with Roleplay just yet, having them give me a few key points their character would mention.) If they roleplay well enough, or provide their points well enough, I will lower the DC of the social skill role they need to make, if not give it to them all together.

I've added two homebrew rules in my campaign and everyone seems to enjoy it thus far; Drunkenness and The Shifty Merchant. With the Drunkenness rule setting, alcoholic beverages have an effect that increases your Drunkenness level by a certain amount starting at 1 and rising all the way to 10. With each stage you gain certain buffs like with Level Two Drunkenness you gain a +5 bonus to your Charisma but you suffer a -5 penalty to your passive Perception, to Level 5 Drunkenness where you have advantage on your attack rolls and saving throws but you suffer a -5 penalty to your AC, all the way to Level 10 Drunkenness where you just fall unconscious and waking up until the next morning. There's more to this ruling and those are just examples, and I've made drinks in my campaign that works similarly to potions like restoring hp or adding additional effects and so forth. The Shifty Merchant ruling is just something I've made up as a special in-game week event if they're lucky to catch them. Every so often a Changeling merchant will travel to the party's current town residence in a magic caravan shop, selling a wide range of randomly chosen special items at 50% reduced price. This is just a way to give my players homebrewed items I've made (I'm a serious homebrewer and have made over HUNDREDS of homebrew items, creatures, classes, and more in my downtime.) as not only the type of item is randomized but also the quality. So one day the merchant could be selling a Rare Shortsword, the next the merchant will be selling an Uncommon Whip or even still be selling the same Rare Shortsword. The real treat is when 1 irl month passes by where on the next visit of the Shifty Merchant, he'll be selling one random Legendary item at full price. Now if the players have the money for it, they can buy it. If they don't, they can instead perform a task for the Shifty Merchant in exchange. This task can range from "Go find this one man who owes me a debt." only to find that very man has been taken by The Bagman, or "Acquire me a special trinket that I've had my eyes on for a while" only to discover that it's being held by a Greatwyrm. Quests and journeys that makes the reward well worth it, and if they just so happen to miss the Shifty Merchant while he's selling a Legendary item, he'll still have it in his possession on the next encounter with him. I've also made it so that the Shifty Merchant couldn't be robbed of his magical items by the players just in case they decide to get too greedy lol The Shifty Merchant is a LV20 Bard from the College of Lore and knows spells like Teleport and Hallucinatory Terrain among other spells that would leave a party of adventurers to a screaming halt.

one of my favorite homebrew rules is "use them or lose them" for animal companions. If you forget about your animal companion for to long, the dm makes an invisible roll for them to wander off, and the party will have to go do a small quest to get them back.

Love the "Rule of Cool (Something Lost, Something Gained)." Having game rules is important for the challenge. But, ultimately, the point is to have fun, so anything that boosts fun without breaking the game is great in my book.

I'm always a fan of new combat rules. flanking and shared initiative both made me go "oh I am going to pick that up RIGHT away"

I've got some you should try. 1st: passive perception vs active. Passive perception is your shield against anything trying to sneak up on you. It's always on... Unless you are actively doing anything. This then creates a need for a lookout. Those who are "keeping watch" get a +3 to their passive perception. This makes it so much more fun for everyone because of the party can distract their target, they can all just stroll up. I usually still have them role in case they crit fail, which then makes the target stop what they are doing and look around. Multiple fail states ramps up the tension. Active Perception, or "searching" had charges equal to your wisdom modifier +3. You have to discover where you are looking and how to find something hidden. The charges is to reflect getting flustered while looking and so once they are spent you have to do something else for 10 min before you get them back. I found these rules to better stimulate real life. I like to sneak up on people for jump scares, and I also lose small items a lot. Next is grappling rules. It always bugged me how you can shoot arrows while being grappled RAW. So I made the grappled condition more impactful and with a built in end game. Grappling: Requires 2 free hands. Make a grapple check using an Athletics contest (versus targets choice of Athletics or Acrobatics) to overpower target. Target cannot be more than one size larger than grappler. Success leaves target grappled. Target may use an action to try and escape by making a grapple check using their choice of Athletics or Acrobatics. Grappler cannot move or perform actions without giving target a chance to escape using their reaction. Grappler may take a special attack action called a Headlock, making another grapple check to attempt to incapacitate target. Upon success, target has 3 rounds to escape or become incapacitated for 10 min at the start of grappler's 3rd turn. (Failure to Headlock doesnt break grapple) Grappled Status- attackers gain advantage, excluding grappler. Disadvantage on atks, except against grappler, disadvantage using weapons. Speed becomes 0, disadvantage on maintaining concentration. Can lead to incapacitation. Then also made 2 feats to go with these new rules. Spider Grappling: You are adept at fighting in close quarters, enabling you to use the strength and dexterity of all your limbs as you leap at your prey and climb about. -can use Acrobatics AND Athletics to initiate grapple. -Can use Acrobatics instead of Athletics for any Grapple checks. -Can use bonus action to break off a grapple and leave the target become your choice of: prone, disarmed, thrown back 10 ft, or stunned till the start of your next turn. Jiu-jitsu: You have spent time learning how limbs and joints work and are able to force a creature into painful, compromising positions with ease. You have become most comfortable challenging creatures in unarmed combat and rarely lose the upper hand while grappling. -Grappling only requires 1 free hand. -Target's reactions to escape a grapple are made at disadvantage. -Target takes 1d4 + STR damage when attempting to break grapple. -Can use bonus action to disarm target. -Target only has 2 rounds after a successful headlock before becoming incapacitated, instead of 3. -Reverse: Whenever you are the target of a grapple, or are grappled, you may use a successful grapple contest to make the grappler the target of your own grapple.

First time commenting, so lets see how this goes. I'm not an expert DM, but I know my way around the rules, and have ran my fair share of games. One on the newer homebrew rules I have implemented is an inspiration variant. I have a little goblet full of gems called The Pool. Based on the Player's levels, they get a certain amount of points to spend on The Pool(1 point per level). At the start of each game my players can spend these points to mainly purchase two types of gems, red and blue(They refresh each game start). Blue gems are worth one point and give advantage, while red gems are worth 2 points and allow to re-roll any roll(including death saves and stuff). I plan to add a third color when they're higher level and have it cost like 10~15 points, so that they can have a guaranteed Nat 20 for 1 roll(OP maybe? We'll see). The main reason I did this is so that I can push the party more freely without worrying that I may overpower them(Basically they get this, I can throw more stuff at them). So yeah, that's me. No one will probably see this, but I thought I had a cool idea and just wanted to share it.

I use a version of Cardic Inspiration, but instead I say at the beginning of the campaign, not game, you get a card pull you can use at any time on anything. But once it's gone, it's gone forever. Cannot replenish. I had one player pull an ace on conversation that had a persuasion DC of 30. They decided that conversation was important enough to them, so they just went for it and completely altered the trajectory of the campaign. It was amazing.

My favorite homebrew system I did was a skill called connections; it gave classes such as bard, and rogues a way of helping the party find people who have what they need or knowing a guy who knows a guy who knows guy, etc. This homebrew rule I added made thing interesting when the rogue brought players to the underground black market, and nice banter between the paladin, and the rogue. At the same time the cleric knowing a church in town that could take them in for free, and of course the party donating some money to the church before leaving as a thanks. These moments made the darker campaigns feel more, wholesome.

The jokes and editing were ON POINT this video. Loving the content recently! Keep it up!! (Also congrats on the baby!!)

"Something lost, something gained" is a great way to put it, it's how I like to implement Rule of Cool as well as "High risk high reward". The rules exist for you to have stable, reliable outcomes that you can plan around. My go-to is "If you're willing to sacrifice your Proficiency bonus", i.e. attacking to help break a grapple on an ally.

One of my favorites is called "Proficiency stacking" So, sometimes things overlap. For example, let's say you find an ancient, magical item. Someone with History proficiency could reasonably have heard about it. And someone with Arcana proficiency could be able to discern what it is. BUT... If you have both history and arcana proficiency, you roll either Arcana or history (player's choice) and add the proficiency bonus for both arcana and history. This stems from a sort of other rule I use which is simply "some things can't be done without proficiency". The barbarian who knows nothing about Magic cannot reasonably roll an arcana check, because he has no in depth magical Knowledge. That would be like me trying to do quantum physics with my itty bitty baby brain and somehow figuring out the equation necessary to create black holes. That's absurd. If you don't have proficiency in something... Sometimes you just can't roll for that thing because you don't know what you're doing. Proficiencies can overlap though, and when they do your chances of knowing what is happening is higher.

A cool usage of the rule of cool was when I played an eldritch knight, I used a longsword and sliced and pierced people with it, and sometimes blades get stuck or you have to quickly react to something before getting the blade out etc (realistically..) With weapon bond you can have the sword teleport to your hand as a bonus action, my DM allowed me to spice up the fighting by allowing me to let go of the blade mid combat, then holding my hands like I was holding a blade and *bamf*... the blade was in my hands slicing down on the next foe.. Is there a rule saying your blade gets stuck? Nope. Was there a need for me to do it like that in game mechanically? Nope.. And never really tried to use it for other things, I just thought the idea was cool and imagined how awesome it would look like, he thought is was cool to and waived the bonus action requirement 👌That simple decision really made me love the character for some reason!

A solution to both massive damage and lingering injuries would be the Role Master crit tables. They are brutal and add a new level of consequence to combat.

Re: Achievement Magic Items In my campaign, my players found an artifact that sucks in the souls of anyone who dies, anywhere on the same plane that it's in. My druid's first thought was "i wanna turn this into a magic item", so now she has a magic staff that can cast attacks that my boss-level enemies use, but only after they kill that boss-level enemy. It's a really neat way to incentivise looking for strong enemies on their adventures because most of the party thinks "what loot will they drop?" but the druid ends up thinking "I wonder what unique spell I'll get for my staff if we kill it?" and it's probably my favourite interaction to have with my players. EDIT: If you're familiar with Blue Mage from FFXIV, then you already know what this is like.

I use a "third times the charm" rule, if someone attacks the same enemy 2 times without moving and tries to attack it again they get advantage on the 3d attack because if a character is just hitting something over and over again I like to think they would aim better, hit harder or try hitting a different part of the enemy if the first two attacks didn't work.

The sound design on this video is FANTASTIC.

I love the last one. I did that with my campaign prior. My players wanted to save another from an Adult Blue Dragon which would have been just instant death and I offered them a deal of trading their inspirations for it. (I play inspiration different in my games. It's basically a, "You can do anything really cool so long as it makes sense" button.) Don't worry, they got their inspirations back in a few sessions afterwards since I liked giving it after some fun interactions and/or events. I had actual divine intervention come in which made sense for that chara lore-wise.

One homebrew rule my group had was magic item sets. The magic items would get bonus effects for every other piece of the set you have

The 'Achievment magic items' sounds like a variant on the items of legacy, which were the subject of the 3.5 supplement Weapons of Legacy. These items generally had a level up progression of their own, improving as your character gained levels, but may have also included tasks to unlock certain abilities if desired. It was a pretty fun alternative to generic gear or artifacts, sitting somewhere in between, and it was a pretty cool way to have an heirloom item that a character might want to keep around for the long term.

Our new house rule that we have is that death saves don't reset when you stand up and instead you have to take a short rest, long rests are more restrictive in our game as a result. because our group had a slight issue where we abuse healing word and don't take short rests despite having half the party being short rest classes

Watching these rules videos back to back is amazing, lmao. Seeing change and growth and just difference over time.

Giving up character levels to save a party member is so insanely badass

The rule where you gave each individual character side objectives was actually something I was doing! Another rule we did was reform inspiration. We got annoyed with how travel and food rules were becoming so I made a chart that gave players “inspiration points” if they completed an activity in one of the following categories: Food/Drink, Rest/Leisure, Clothing/Weather. You’re only allowed one from each category, so potentially you can have 3 buffs to use. So, for example, if a player wanted to eat, he could eat a small meal that contains 1-2 ingredients. This earns him a d4 to add to any roll. If he slept on a bedroll the night before then he earned other d4. And if he’s wearing a poncho in the rain, then he has a third. He can use any of the rolls until the next long rest or within 24 hours, in which it resets and he has to do them again. But we scaled it! See, there were up to three tiers of each category. So if he eat a meal of 3-4 ingredients, you earn a tier 2 reward which is a d6. Then a feast would earn you a d8. The more comfortable the resting place, like a wagon or inn, the buff also goes up. You can get pretty creative about this. Like if a player has a favorite activity like painting or hunting, they are rewarded. If they choose to make camp for several days or sleep at a luxury inn, then they get a bigger REST buff. The whole idea of this is too reward players for doing small activities, actually remember to eat and taking time to rest. They won’t get punished if they don’t, but if they go out of their way to say, “I’m gonna go spend a couple hours fishing and then make up a meal” and Perhaps another player joins him. They both get a d4 for fishing, and everyone gets a in the party gets a d6 for eating Fresh Fish. I just felt that if a player woke up WELL RESTED with a FULL BELLY and are DRESSED APPROPRIATELY, then they would naturally function better and therefore have that little buff that gets past that failed check, save or even attack roll.

I actually don’t know what Home brew rules we use that aren’t common, my DM is just super chill and likes when players think outside his thought process or a player does something a bit more “engaged” than usual, so he’ll award inspiration for those created moments. Also if you think of something cool or crazy he can get on board with, he’ll just allow it to happen with no checks or rolls necessary

The best homebrew rule my DM incorporated to help make you feel like your character stood out was getting with you during the character building process and creating either a skill or spell specifically for that character. A couple examples would be our wizard had a gravity spell (he could make an item or person weigh more or less as if gravity and more or less of an effect on it) that was based off of his emotions. So the the more intense the moment the stronger the spell, but it did come with some backlash in the form of either exhaustion or ability damage that we would have to heal. Our fighter would be able to go in an "adrenaline overdrive" where he could interrupt an enemy attack with his own outside of his turn. If he wanted to use this more than once per day he would take con damage otherwise he would become exhausted and would need 2 long rests to fully recover.

In my DnD group we use a rather ridiculously overpowered homebrew rule which we all personally like! Every level we’re supposed to choose between an Ability Score Improvement or a Feat, we instead are allowed to pick both things. This naturally makes players a whole lot more powerful, but we’re a party of 3 players and the DM explained the real intention behind this rule is to allow players to take feats based on more flavor and utility rather than power alone without having to sacrifice ability scores (Hence why Lucky as a feat is banned from this rule). As an example, I decided to take the Magic Initiate feat on a Ranger as a 4th level feat because our party lacked a proper healer and we had to work around that, so I decided to be the one who took healing word to have easy access to restoring hit points (Cheaper than Healing Spirit in resources and better for action economy than cure wounds) in case of emergencies. Maybe this rule doesn’t work out for all the games out there, but I had a lot more fun looking through fun feats like Chef, Inspiring Leader and others of similar scale. If anyone has gone this far through this comment I want to ask, which feats would you take with this homebrew rule? (Btw sorry if it’s kinda hard to read, my English is not the best out there, but I hope the point of the comment was understood)

I'm finally pulling the trigger on the INT mod proficiency. Our house rules 1. Mercer potion 2. Bonus action for second draw/stow 3. Hold turn 4. Checks to avoid movement cost for mounting and standing up 5. Fixed jumping with similar check 6. You can swap out opportunity attacks for grapple+etc like a regular attack. 7. Random or locked in fear rules. Fight flight or freeze. 8. Several optional moves from the DMG including clamber, overrun, shove aside, and tumble. No flanking though. 9. Item crafting rule fixes and downtime accruals. 10. Clarifications for spell research. 11. Sentinel fix 12. An essay on how you can carry concious and unconscious bodies. 13. Potion mixing rules turned on. 14. Bigger or smaller imposes advantage/disadvantage on vs athletics checks.

I really love this channel, it’s the only d&d related channel that doesn’t get dry or seem to try too much. I can tell that you love the game and you can see it on arcane arcade. I use a lot of these same rules, the death save one is new to me and i’ll definitely be using that going forward. I changed a bit of the bloodied rules to make PC deaths hit a little harder, and to make the HP system seem a little bit less “100 hit points and you aren’t feeling any attacks until you drop to 0”. If an attack hits you for more than half of your health, con save. failed save = attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on checks/saves depending on the type of damage that you took. at 1/4 or less of your total HP, attack rolls against you have advantage, your attack rolls have disadvantage with a -1 to hit. disadvantage on saves/checks based on what you’re fighting & the damage type that it deals. at 10 or less HP, you automatically fail all saves and checks (if the player can give me a good reason as to why they could make that check/save i’ll allow it). you suffer a -1 to your AC, -3 to hit, and attacks against you have advantage. It’s a brutal rule, but with some good descriptions of attacks and the dungeon dudes’ healing potion rule it makes for some tense combat. We also use the crunchy crits rule ;)

The beginning of the "Massive Damage" Chapter was set up really well, with the interruption of the background music and your delivery. Mad respect!

For magic items that change through specific actions, I label them "Quest Items" because... Well I think it is obvious. Its really fun to also just put the "Quest" attribute on a card, but not give all the information of what they have to do or what will happen if they meet those requirements. QUEST: Whenever you take a rest, you may choose to not regain lost Hit Points. If you do, mark a box. When you mark the final box: Tell [Insert GM Name]. I usually like to give some mechanical incentive for folks to take what look like disadvantageous actions (easy go-to is always a Luck Token), but I also like narrative quests such as "Whenever you refuse a reward after helping someone in a time of need, mark a box. When you mark the final box: Tell Nerdy" or "Whenever you capture a group of enemies instead of slaying them, mark a box (etc.)" to help encourage certain behaviour. Honestly, if you have the right kind of players (or people you've been playing with long enough) just them seeing "Track each time you do this, tell me when you do it X times" on a card is enough to make them _immediately_ wanna do that thing... Even if it seems that thing could only bring pain >:3

7:47. I similar rule to this is upgradable magic items. The idea is that instead of just replacing a magic item with a new rarity (of the same item), make that ability apply to the old one, as the connection and power grows with each combat, just like a player does. A moon blade already has this built-in flavor. Oh, and it works best with conscious weapons. This way, players don’t have to lose that uncommon great sword they really like.

Definitely a step up compared to the old rules! Excited to test them out!

Hey Jacob, just wanted to say I used the magic items points rule for a oneshot, and it was really helpful, since my players actually got to use their magic items, so thanks for that!

One of my HB rules is: The DnD calculated Lift/Push/Drag is more of a recommendation. More of what you can do without a lot of effort. If a wizard can wish a building away, ima at least let a Barbarian roll to try and bring it down Herculese style

The "something lost, something gain", is what I call "equivalent exchange" at my table (like in full metal alchemist) and it's not only appliable to rule of cool but to everything in the world, like if a NPC saves their ass, the NPC (or another one they love) may die in a couple of sessions.

I love the random Skyrim music in the background throughout the video. Makes this much more at home :)

The editing on this is amazing

The great thing about devine magic, prayers, and gods getting involved is that theres generally no rules for how to handle gods because they are gods and kinda supersede the rules. If a player appeals to a god to make the impossible happen, and the god could theoretically pull it off, then rules be damned. Especially if the player is paying for it in equal trade.

This is probably one of your best produced videos. Each segment is tight, no longer than it needs to be. I can tell you put a lot of work and care into the script and editing on this one.

Neat little homebrew my DM made was to help my GOO Warlock keep pace with the rest of the party. Entropic Ward has three tokens instead of one to keep it in line with Lucky and the then recently released Silvery Barbs. True Strike is a bonus action, gives insight into the target’s defenses like current HP, resistances, immunities, etc. and gives advantage to whoever attacks the target next. Repelling Blast deals fall damage if the target is pushed against a wall… also because my DM’s an engineer, it can only push creatures up to Large size 10 ft. Every size above that halves the distance it can be shoved

This is really well done. Great editing. Very entertaining.

Honestly, when you said, "leveling magic items" my mind jumped to "items that grow as you use them", which is what you technically said, but I thought of items that gain additional effects after possessing them for X levels, incentivizing keeping items for longer (rather than Goblin Slayer-ing into your final gear) without the drawbacks of sticking with the simple +1 sword you got in session 3 while your Barbarian ends up with a +3 Greataxe that can enhance his rage even further once enough enemies are felled in battle.

Neat! I thought i'd share some of my own: 1. Quickdraw. Probably the most commonly used. If two characters want to act at the same time, have them both roll initiative and let the higher roll go first. 2. Spell checks. Whenever we need to improvise some magical effect, such as freezing a lake or reaching out into the aether, I set the DC upfront and have the person roll a d20+their spell casting modifier for the result. 3. Shared turns. If a player hasn't gone in initiative yet during a round, they can act on the same turn as another NPC or player. You can use this to perform team attacks. 4. Natural 20 inspiration. Whenever a player gets a natural 20 on a roll, I give them an inspiration token. They can use this token to get a critical hit, get advantage on any roll, or gain an additional benefit from any action they perform. Likewise, if a player gets a natural 1, I give them a penalty token, which means I can add a complication to any action they perform. 5. Session XP. Rather than tallying up the amount of XP players get from individual monsters, I give different amounts depending on the difficulty of the session for the players. If they didn't kill a lot of monsters, but had difficulty persuading an NPC or faced many hurdles, they might get a lot of XP. If they kill a lot of monsters, but rarely struggled, I may give them fewer XP. 6. Performance slider. For chase scenes, and public performances such as speeches or musical contests I like to use sliders. Basically, you have one side (players), and another side (NPC's) with a tracker in the centre and 5 points on either side. For every successful roll, the slider moves 1 over to the side of the players, and for every failure, the slider moves 1 over to the side of the NPC. If the tracker gets 5 points toward the players side, they win the encounter (Win the musical ballad, convince the crowd, catch the chased, etc.) if it goes entirely to the NPC's side, they lose the encounter.

8:00 It kinda reminds me of the Vestiges from Wildemount/Exandria. Like an example would be Star Razor, and how it became Exalted is that you gained vengeance against a certain person. It’s really cool.

"Let's say you're just a little guy and, uh, Tiamat hits you with all her breath weapons" accompanied by the Gargantuan Tiamat absolutely killed me. I think I replayed that part a hundred times and laughed just as hard every time. And "how many paladin levels do I have to give up?" was straight up epic. These are some EXCELLENT rules.

i've been really enjoying a way we roll level-up hit dice in my dm's campaign, the player and the dm both roll, with the dm's roll secret, and the player chooses to use their own roll they can see, or the dm's roll creates some tense situations when a player gets a 4 on their d8 and has to think about if they're willing to gamble that away

Some homebrew I have found works for my games Modified Crunchy Crits: Crunchy Crits, but sneak attack and brutal critical dice are not maximized Called Hits: Use an arbitrary damage threshold (max 20) on physical damage attacks to inflict a lingering injury on a targeted body part Battle Masters can use Int for their superiority DC Variant spell lists and spellcasting abilities for 1/3 casters Going to 0 hp equals a lingering injury of level of exhaustion up to condition level 3 Players can buy and sell starting equipment during character creation

Just found your channel and I love it. I have never played D&D but man you make me want to DM.

That giving up of paladin levels to save a character is super cool and so thematic. Props to that player. That's awesome.

I use the Crunchy Crits rule in my campaigns. It makes it so EVERY crit is, well, critical. I have a caviot to my rules though, and its that crit damage only applies to the weapon's damage. Stuff like sneak attack, hunters mark, and divine smite don't benefit from the Crunchy Crit. It still makes combat much more tense, while keeping rogues and paladins in check.

11:00 I use starfinder weight system in my dnd homebrew, In starfinder items don’t go 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and such pounds but they go by bulk weight. Bulk is broken down to the following. - : this means the item weight isn’t important or barely exist unless you have an insane amount of them. This is like say a toothpick or simple pen. Now I’d say you own a bag that contains 100 pens that becomes the next thing. L: this mean it is light bulk. Light bulk is translated to technically 0.1 bulk. These are usually firearms, daggers or similar. The moment you have 10 items that have L they convert into below. Any number: so if have a item that goes 1, 2, 3 and such then that’s straight forward how much it ways. Starfinder bulk limit is determined by the players Strength score split in half. So if the soldier got 16 Str then their bulk limit for encumbered is 8. Max encumbered is double that. Backpacks exist in starfinder that increase bulk weight limit by 1, 2 or 4 and each backpack can carry limit of 3 bulk.

Giving up levels to accomplish a goal so personal is the coolest thing I've ever heard.

I've had a few things that I've been allowed to do that were rather interesting. Multiple DMs have given me a free feat at level one (because the feat/ASI system sucks) so that we can further customize our characters. One of the DM's I'm playing with gives us the ability to gain feats between levels as long as we doing something that warrants it. I have a Theif that is level three and has two feats that don't really make that much sense for a thief to have except that's how I play the character. He has the healers feat (and I have healed more people than our cleric, or druid) and he has the chef feat because we gained in an inn and he has become the dedicated cook for the party. Gameplay-wise they are amazing to have, and I would never have taken those feats if I had to choose between them and the ability score improvement. One of my DM's allows us to gain proficiency where they make sense based on our backstory or feats. Did you know that if you take the healer's feat that does not come with proficiency with medicine? It makes no sense to be able to use a healer's kit to heal wounds if you are not proficient with medicine checks. Likewise, a beastmaster ranger should have animal handling no matter what. If they didn't take that skill at level 1 they should have it to become a Beast Master. Keen mind should also give you proficiency with history if you don't have it or expertise if you do. Alert should also give you proficiency with perception if you don't have it, I mean a character with an 8 or less wisdom score needs to have some skill in proficiency to keep from being surprised. It makes sense that they could or should have skills that pertain to certain feats. I also have a DM that has allowed me to make more use of our tool proficiencies. In many campaigns, if you are proficient with a tool then, ding dang doodle, good job, but if you want to do anything with it then it will cost you just as much if not more to make an item than it would be to buy it. Do you want to make plate armor with your blacksmithing? Guess what, with the current rules, that would take 1500/50 weeks or 30 weeks to make. Are you making a diamond and gold ring with your jewelry tools? You found a 500 gold diamond, and you have a gold bar, but guess what it will take over 10 weeks to make. Does that really make sense? No? That is what is gives to us in downtime rules. Likewise, a potion of healing takes a week to make. Herbs you smash and stew together and pour in a bottle takes a week to make. Now, for one DM it did take that long, but I also found all the herbs during that time frame and was still allowed to make 5 potions for all that effort. I feel that as long as we can give a reasonable time frame to make an item with proof, as long as I'm not enchanting it, that's the time we should use not the stupid table in the DM's guide. Crafting currently sucks and the timetables are garbage, so most DM's I've played with have thrown them out the windows anyway.