What is the best homebrew rule in your D&D campaign? 🅿️2  

Kickstarter link, thanks for checking it out! www.kickstarter.com/projects/homieandthedude/the-wandering-tavern?ref=547nrt

the 'I'm taking you with me' rule (this, like all optional rules were discussed in session zero and agreed on with all players) upon a PC being felled to death saves and not outright killed, on their turn they can declare that they are taking their enemy with them, auto failing 2 death saves, the PC is granted a single attack upon the foe that felled them, this attack is at advantage and is an auto crit on a hit, damage is rolled normally, the PC then rolls their death save for the turn. If the character survives or not, the PC cannot do this again until 7 in game days have passed I got this from a youtube short but modified it a touch, has lead to some cool moments and the unfortunate death of several PC's

Half of all dice for any healing item, spell, or ability always roll maximum. It's nice to get some consistently decent healing out of potions, allows players to conserve resources, encourages them to roleplay with the colorful NPC shopkeepers and prevent the loop of only healing people when they fall unconsious in combat for a few hit points at a time. So many things are possible once the players realize they have a decent back up plan in their healing.

The “Seduce Me/Convince me” rule. When having an interaction with an NPC that involves persuasion/intimidation/deception style rolls, our DM has a rule that if you can (In character) convince/seduce/intimidate him sufficiently then he will drop the DC for the roll super low to essentially guarantee a pass. If he pulls this rule and you come up with some unconvincing rubbish then you better hope to roll a 19 or 20 because everything else is going to fail. I managed to convince him to sell me a Hat of Disguise for 100gp (they are meant to priced up to 599gp) at my last session by appealing to the characters insecurities, as I am a comically large Goliath, so I explained how sometimes I just want to look like everyone else and not have people stare at me so much. Now I have a fancy hat :) Also, another DM I play with has started to implement “Distraction Dice” one of our players for this one shot (we’ll call him Bill) is a DM himself and really doesn’t like letting go of control, he also likes to derail sessions a bit by just chatting about random stuff. New DM decided that for this one shot, whenever anyone disrupted or distracted from the gameplay she’d take a 1d4 and pop it to one side for the next encounter, when that player next takes damage, she rolled all of the d4s that has been collected and added that to the standard damage roll. This was hilarious when we get to the BBEG and they do an AOE attack hitting half of the party for 13 damage, apart from Bill, who took an extra 25 damage from the distraction dice. Really helped keep the rest of us focussed.

Award Exp for things other than combat: solve a difficult puzzle, disarm a deadly trap, successfully negotiated a trade deal or peace treaty. Craft a magic item.

custom crafting. I basically recreated a Skyrim-style crafting system that allowed for heavy customization of potions and crafted items that works for DND 5e by stating individual plants, components, and resources native to the world. when I first introduced it, 3 members of the party all became artificers, and what was supposed to be a "save the world" style campaign, became a "craft a potion of immortality" campaign filled with resource gathering, monster slaying, and nerd filled arguments about how to play the system to make the best potions, magic items, etc. after the campaign finished my players pushed *hard* to convince me to publish it. I just love the look of sheer joy when they find what is essentially a common garden variety of oleander like it's the holy grail. to me, that's worth all the hassle and toil.

To avoid Counter-Counter-Counterspelling, the Counterspell spell initiates a contested spellcasting ability check between the two relevant parties, the winner's being successful in either Countering the spell or preventing the spell from being counterspelled. Counterspell Also, Deflect Missiles is now simply a contested attack roll, if you roll an unarmed strike higher than the ranged attack roll, you can catch it / spend ki to parry it.

Certain enemies, particularly those made of stone, have a very high AC to represent their tough, stony skin. When a player finally lands a hit, the AC goes down from, say, 25 to 22. Any Crit or Max Damage lowers its AC by 1 to a minimum of 18 (give or take). It gives the players a rush, knowing that they're literally weakening the monsters, giving every Crit even more value

You can spend 30 in-game minutes busking by doing some kind of check: Performance for music, Acrobatics for dance, Insight for comedy, Animal Handling for animal tricks, etc. It’s a nice in character way to gain passive income and has a whole table based on how high you rolled, with the Nat 1 being you fucked up so badly that people give you cash for laughing at your misfortune.

Stacking three forms of resistance to any particular element gives you immunity to that element.

we have a combo modified rule homebrew rule. Half Elves get trance. because as my dm states "Half an elf is still an ELf"

Good morning! I recently started being a DM and my personal house rule is everyone gets a "plot armor" moment. They may use it almost anytime they want, including death saves. They aren't going to be allowed to use it during the final fight with BBEG, and I've already established it with my players. My thinking is it will defuse a high-tension moment or save a player from a horrible mistake that could cost them their character. Another idea I'm having is giving them all a unique weapon that grows with them and develops different fighting skills through a mini upgrade tree, but I'm still working on it. I hope to learn a lot from being a new DM!

Why do people keep insisting on forcing people to hide death saves? If I die because an ally couldn’t see I rolled a Nat 1 before they got to me to help me and didn’t know I had less time, over a made up rule just because “hur dur me hate metagaming”, I’m going to be livid. Especially because it’s not metagaming for an experienced soldier or healer to be able to deduce how close you are to dying. These are characters with super human abilities, including being able to see up to over 1200 feet away, but they can’t see how badly someone is injured when they’re close by? Nah, that just sounds like an unnecessary ruling.

Drinking a potion yourselfe is a bonusaktion.

The guy that requires characters to train in order to level: this is fine if your players are based somewhere that has all this training available. If your party is traveling as part of their adventure, all you're doing is needlessly complicating the system. This is just going to frustrate a new player and suck the enjoyment out of advancing in the game.

My favorite homebrew is that a Warlock’s eldritch blast can be reflected based on their pact: deep ones is cold damage, undead/undying is necrotic, fiend is fire damage, etc etc. While my warforge uses the hexblade, we had a spacial “crystal” damage because her patron is associated with crystals and her weapon is made with a magic crystal. But yeah, we just wanted to really lean into our pacts.

Homerules? Well, one I liked to use was a change to initiative. I made it so that the party rolled initiate each round, *but* the pool of turns was shared, meaning they could decide their action economy. The flip side was that their enemies got to do the same thing. It allowed for a lot of interesting plays that you wouldn't normally see. It let me change up the difficulty in fights a lot, as if they were doing good, I could choose a better order for enemy turns, and if they were doing poorly, I let them wail on my stronger guys before they took their turn. Sometimes it came in clutch. It also prevented things like, everyone wailing on the guy that was slowest, so they could destroy them in one turn, leaving the enemy down one or two attacks.

Our DM is testing the system where once the trap is triggered (player failed the check) he discribes the "launching" of the trap (like "you take a step and hear rustling and twigs cracking under your feet" for the forest pitfall trap) so players could act before the trap fully activates. Like raising the shield, hearing the arrow trap activated.

Personally I like my party’s rule that Crits automatically do max damage plus your damage roll, keeps crits from being able to do less than a standard attack just because you rolled badly.

a list of home brew Flaws that you can take during character creation, they effect your character whether you are Absent Minded or Overly Cautious. In return you are granted a +2 or two +1s to your stats or you are granted a Feat at first level if you qualify for it. Been interesting to roleplay your mechanical Flaw and stuff. I took Blatant for my Halfling Bard and he has trouble keeping things secret so he had Disadvantage on Stealth and Deception rolls and he could never take those two Skills either. It was really fun to play him too.

One of my favorites I came up with for my games: Drunk casting - When casting drunk, you must pass an Int roll to cast normally; if you fail, you end up combining the effects of two or more spells you can cast, determined by the DM.

My favorite rules: If you roll a Nat20 on an Ability Check, after all modifiers, add proficiency. But if you roll a Nat1, (even if you can treat the dice roll differently), you instead subtract proficiency. Before making a saving throw, say what’s on your mind. If it’s a new memory or emotion, it can give advantage or disadvantage. There is a select list of feats that martials can get whenever they get Extea Attack (even if multiclass), and feats for casters at spell levels 3, 5, and 9.

So at our table (we all DM different campaigns) Magic is flexible. For those who know what they are doing. If you wish to do something with a spell that it isn't normally able to do, then describe how your character is changing the spell and roll Arcana, which could be harder or easier depending on the characters familiarity with that spell. For example, in our last campaign, Rime of the Frostmaiden, my harengon genie warlock was swallowed by a mimic. Since the I wasn't surprised and the mimic was two sizes larger, my DM allowed me to roll initiative against the mimic (it had been my bed) before I was restrained. I beat it, and immediately activated the genie warlocks ability to float as a bonus action. Still inside the mimic obviously, but here's were the spellcraft comes in. I cast Wind Wall. Designating that I would form it around my body like a sphere (like Avatar Aang but with just air) I explained that I would manipulate the weave of the spell so that it feeds off of itself and uses itself as a base. DM said the check would be high but I would get a bonus due to Wind Wall being my characters go-to signature spell (besides Create Food and Water). I succeeded. And since it had engulfed me... the mimic auto-failed its saves. It became known as the 'Blood-nado Incident' A second homebrew rule is 'The Gods are ALWAYS Watching' ... Praying for divine intervention is always an option, but unless your class is cleric, paladin, or warlock the gods who would assist are random. If you pray, DM writes down a number. player will roll a d100. If they match then congrats, Divine Intervention! It almost never works. I say almost... because in that same campaign from the example above there were four successful Divine Interventions. One of which turned our oathbreaker into a Oath of Redemption and gave him his arm back... The DM was NOT happy as it had ruined a 'decent into madness and hate' plan he had for the character. The last was mine. Saved the paladins lover, the lovers sister, and our beloved adopted bandit/rogue... In exchange I gave up my class, an old enemy now knows we are alive, and the BBEG attempted to screw with the paladin. Rule of 3. 3 lives saved, 3 lives altered. (DM absolutely took the opportunity to nerf the hells out of me by changing my class in a thematical way. Improved Invisibility, bonus action flight, long range sniping, and BS spells that turned his gritty survival campaign into "I am trying to kill you and you DUMP OATMEAL ON MY DRAGON?!"... yeah, I was a chaotic bunny. I don't blame him.)

We use the Improved ASI rule at our table, really adds power to the whole 'power fantasy' while also giving validity to certain builds that didn't really have much wiggle room to begin with

Level up energy. When fighting, I have enemies set up into tiers. Minion, middling, challenge, minibusses, Boss. Each has a set amount of XP they players get when they make a kill, which they keep track of in real time. Should they adage to get enough to level up mid-battle, there is a bright flash of light as energy surges through them. They can then choose whether to take the level, which will mean updating their character sheet after the fight, or to spend that energy on a type of advantage, which means they don't go up a level and have to reset their XP counter. They can use it for stuff like instaheal to full health, having their next attack auto-crit, regain spell slots, or moving double their movement speed for a round. Basically, anything that you could use a sudden burst of energy to do. It's lead to some level gaps between players, but usually ends up being pretty awesome.

I had a massive group that I was DMing for and I was still relatively new to DMing. The 2 rules that helped me the most were fixed initiative and group skill check dcs. Fixed initiative was simple enough, we roll initiative at the very start of the session and that’s the initiative we roll with for every encounter (like 2-3 per session). Nat 1s were re rolled. While Ik it kinda punishes less dexterous PCs, it helps running the game a LOT smoother when dealing with a big party of mostly new players. If I had the same group now we’d do normal initiative as they learned a lot and so did I do I think the game would be faster overall but I genuinely think the game ran better with a fixed initiative for them. 2. Group skill checks (again for the same group) we’re for when the whole party wanted to do something. Solo skill checks were still very common and called for, but at times I had 8 people asking to do the same thing. So the simple formula was take the tasks normal dc, multiply it by the number of players, and adjust it as I saw fit based off said dc. 7 people wanted to stealth sneak into the bbeg’s camp? What would be a DC 14 stealth check would turn into a DC 80. It added a huge sense of team work for them and my players were all ecstatic to hit that bigger number. There was also the inspiration homebrew in which everyone got 1 inspiration to start off each session with

My best hb rule overhauls CON bonus to HP by class. This makes taking martial levels extra beefier than casters and avoids having casters having grearer HP than fronters A d6er gains 1hp per CON every odd level. A d8er gains normally. A d10er gains 2hp per con every even level. Barbarians gain 2hp per con every level. With this rule being sorc or wizard is hard at lower tiers to compensate the insanity of higher tiers. Meanwhile if you cap con as a barb you make +10 hp per level +d12. Makes up fo the rage shortage.

Yugioh Themed Campaign...... DM have us play an actual duel.... if we're in a bad spot DM has us roll a D20..... if we get a nat 20 DM lets us have a "Destiny Draw" which allows us to basically add whatever card we think can bail us out to our hand instead of conducting our normal draw phase...... In normal DnD games.... that.be like giving a player a possible chance at using a spell or class ability that they technically dont meet the activation conditions for to bail.our selves out.... like using sneak attack while.being clearly visible or using a 5th lv spell without having an according spell slot left

one homebrew rule i have kept since i began using it, has been in relation to multi-classing. since my players had a habit of taking multi-class characters, i found this as a result of 1 campaign i ran. since the campaign was a setting in which they played as 'themselves' in a fantasy world (think isekai anime stuff, but minus the stupidly OP stuff) and because they could not have reasonable experience casting spells (and i found out i made a good call on session 1 since i had a caster in the group) so for the first few levels of taking a caster class, the players needs to roll a concentration check (just a DC 10 CON check) to see if they can even grasp the magic they try and use. later on i added it as a rule with leniency at higher levels to create a way where players that go from a non-mage class and multi-class into a spellcaster (going eldrtich knight fighter does not require this check) so long as players don't have spell slots in their current classes they need to pass those saves upon taking a caster class. Think champion fighter takes up sorcerer needs to make those saves for a few levels. iirc i made it a minimum timespan of in-game time or levels whichever comes first since it's about them grasping their magic and not punishing stuff.

One thing I like to do is reward called shots. It encourages players to be descriptive with attacks. So, if a player says, "I attempt to slash the enemy's wrist so he drops his weapon" I'll let them do that, it might add a few to the ac depending on how hard it would be to accomplish, but if they do hit they get the extra bwnefit

Not sure where I first heard it from, but I implemented a Potion (Bonus) Action rule. You can use a BA to drink a potion, but you have to roll for the heal amount... but if you spend a whole action to drink, you get the max amount. The way I see it, a bonus action is probably about 2 seconds; and you probably can't chug the whole thing cleanly in that time.... but take a whole 6 second action and sure, you got it all.

@1:50 That's neat. An airship tavern sounds like a fun setting.

One optional rule from the 1st edition AD&D book Unearthed Arcana which my old D&D group liked using, and continued using all through 2nd Edition, was the optional ability score called Comeliness, which determined your character's Physical Beauty). We always liked it because we always felt that Charisma should be more of a reflection of a character's force of personality, while Comeliness (or Appearance, or Physical Beauty, or whatever you want to call it) is simply what you look like. The COM stat didn't have much effect on our characters (none of the skills were comeliness based, or could really be changed to them). But it was a useful tool for initial interactions with NPCs. Characters with really high COM scores would have NPCs react favorably towards them, while those with a low COM would have NPCs react negatively. What's more, those with very high COM scores (18+) would have NPCs become Infatuated with our characters. We even took it a step further, and during initial meetings with new PCs (during the start of a new campaign, or when a new player joined the group) even the new PCs had to roll to see if they were to "fall in love at first sight". The rules for that were simple. When meeting a character with a COM score of 18+ the character (both NPCs and PCs) had to roll a WIS check. If they failed, they were infatuated with that character. In 3.5 edition or 5th Edition, it would be a WIS check vs the DC = COM Score. It might make for a cool house rule for Pathfinder 1e/D&D 3.5 and 5th Edition D&D. If anyone chooses to implement the Comeliness Rule, COM does work a little different than other stats. First, it can be altered by the choice of character race. Some races (elves, half elves, aasimar, etc) gain a bonus of at least +1. Other races (half-orcs, dwarves, tieflings, etc) gain a negative modifier of at least -1. Furthermore, your CHA score can alter your COM score. Add your CHA modifier to your COM score to adjust it either positively or negatively (depending on your CHA score). All combined, you could potentially have a COM score solidly into the twenties. Theoretically, an Aasimar with an 18 CHA and an 18 COM would have a total COM score of 24 (18 + 2 racial adjustment, +4 CHA modifier = 24 COM). Of course, these rules could be simply ignored and your COM score is whatever you rolled on 3d6. Its up to you.

PANR has tuned in.

Sacrificial HP: certain spells, actions and attacks can be boosted or replaced by sacrificing some Health points. You get 3 uses per session and depending on the amount of health adds other debilitating effects. Say for instance a barbarian wants to really kill a NPC, they would sacrifice some hp and their attacks would be described as “going beyond you limits” and after the attack the barbarian feels drained (gets disadvantage on their next roll) Or say when a wizard doesn’t have a higher spell slot, they can sacrifice some HP as an alternative, increasing the power well beyond their limits. I’m thinking in incriminants of 5hp, once you sacrifice more than 25hp you really feel the effects.

An area my party is going through right now in a homebrew campaign is steeped in ancient magic, every single time anyone casts a spell in this area, I roll a wild magic d20 like with the sorcerer. It's been especially spicy because the entire party has at least a few levels in a full caster class.

My character almost because of a tavern robbery

Our personal favorite is anytime a attack crits aka natural 20, the player gets the maximum damage in their first die and then rolls the second one. This makes the crit always feel more powerful instead of rolling x2 d12s and getting a 1 and a 2.

Potions of self as a Bonus Action, Potions on others as a Full Action.

A rule where potions of healing heals for its full amount if you use an action to drink it or roll as normal if you a bonus action to drink it, A rule where you can buy books for feats and use the down time to train on those said feats by first rolling a d20+mod of related ability score (STR mod for weapon master for example) then roll d100 plus the result of the first roll (an extra d100 if you rolled higher than 20). And you gain experience equal to the value the second roll. If you gained a total of 1000 exp, you official learn the feat. It is not the overpowered, but that campaign also allowed the players to homebrew their own feat. And... uh... it is one of the reason that campaign has a huge power spike. A rule where you can take both an ASI and a feat during the level you gain an ASI. There are two variant for this. One is that you can take +2 ASI and a feat, one is you can only take +1 ASI and a feat.

I don't know if it's "the best" but my players enjoy it. We play 3.5, and I got really annoyed about casters having such a limited amount of spells, especially at lower levels. So I took a bit from 5e and made cantrips unlimited uses and added a few cantrips from other sources to give some more options. So even when the wizard runs out of spells he can muster up little bits of attacking magic instead of having to get in close with his dagger or staff. Unlimited detect magics makes it easier for them to find the hidden magical treasures. But by far the most used one is the healing cantrip that heals 1 hp. It lets them save their potions or healing spells for combat and spend time instead to ready for the next encounter.

Upcasting counterspell. Currently in 5e there's no reason to upcast counterspell unless you have a spell slot equal or higher to the level of spell you're trying to counter. If the enemy is casting a sixth level spell, then whether you counterspell it at third or fifth level makes no difference. A homebrew fix to this is really easy: if you upcast the counterspell to a level that is still below the level of the spell you're countering, every spell slot level above the 3rd reduces the DC of the spellcasting ability check by 2. So if you're trying to counterspell a 6th level spell with a 3rd level spell slot, it's a DC 16 check, but if you use a 5th level slot it's only a DC 12.

This wasn't an intended homebrew rule, it was a reward gained for completing a high tier quest for simics - a custom familiar (with simics basically being bio engineers). The rule(s) were simple, combine any mundane creature with a magical creature/beast to create a hybrid, or two mundane creatures and a magical effect from a pre generated list. (Basically a minor tauric) This is what became the rules for familiars, after this resulted in the much beloved exoticrice (A half chameleon, half parrot with petrifying glare - yes it only works when you make eye contact, but this thing was stealthy AF AND could mimic noises/conversation/phrases to make you look it's way) (

Something I'm trying to do with inspiration in my game is since we play online I have a channel in the discord named campfire, where they can type what they do between sessions typically during a long rest and they may receive inspiration the next session. Additionally at the start of each session if a player gives an adequate recap of the previous session that player can also receive inspiration(this idea did come from another DM)

The improved Standard Array, or Enhanced Array--which is also known as the 'Fixed' Standard Array. The Standard Array was created way back in D&D for a purpose, to simulate average dice rolls across 4d6 with the lowest number dropped. In the Enhanced Array, every number in the middle is the same--10, 12, 13, and 14--but the Array is fixed, because the original math was done incorrectly and never fixed, even to this day. To get the Standard Array, 4d6d1 was rolled multiple times, and the average was taken for the lowest dice, which (at the time) produced 8, with the highest average being 15. However, in a long term study, rolling the sample even a hundred times, the actual numbers are 9 and 16. This Enhanced Array is a little better, a bit more robust, but also more flexible--providing a more well-rounded collection of starting abilities, with a very strong chance of having an 18 base and fixing any possible negative score. It's a small thing, but it can have such a positive impact on players over rolling or any worse Array, that (like the suggestion of giving players the ASI stats AND a Feat) is easy to justify, and easy to counter with slightly tougher challenges.

For rolling for health, at our table we take average or higher, we've had a lot of very squishy characters and it gives me as the dm a little extra buffer

Nat 20 doesn't work the same way in social situations as it does in battles. In a social situation a nat 20 is how well spoken you and there isn't a flaw in your speech. While a nat 1 is that you are going to stutter and fumble your words.

7:42 I was almost dead asleep when I heard someone say beguiler, fun class and totally underrated

My dm has us do in character journals that if we do them, we get a free max dice roll for anything. So far, no one has even thought of using it for combat. We all keep using it for roll play or saves.

The best homebrew I currently have is one of spell points. I have never liked the concept magic users being limited in casting spells of a specific level. You run out of first level spells but still have three second and two third? Seemed ridiculous. So I implemented spell points. Now I know that there is a spell point option in the DMG, but I did the math, and it pretty much cripples casters by making your spellcasting roughly 20% less than just using spell slots, and doesn’t take your spellcasting ability into account, so I set up this system. Your spell points are your con mod + your spellcasting mod + your level. A spell costs its level to cast. Simple, easy.

I've experimented with Critical Hit Effects. I tried adapting the Critical Effect Chart from the Warhammer 1e RPG, for use in AD&D 2nd Edition. It worked . . . okay. The problem with it was it was basically a "One Size Fits All" set of descriptions, so a Nat 20 with a dagger or an arrow could have the same Critical Effect as a great sword or a war club. Then I came across the Critical Effect Tables in the 2nd Edition AD&D book "Player's Options: Combat and Tactics". This had much better rules for different weapons of different sizes and types against different sized opponents. However the descriptions of the Critical Effects were kinda lame. For example, in Warhammer 1e, if your Critical Effect was to bisect your opponent at the waist, it read something like "You are showered in your enemy's blood as you cut him in half at the waist. He falls to the ground in two pieces. Death from shock and blood loss is instantaneous." While the Combat and Tactics one reads "Your opponent is cut in half at the waist. Takes triple damage. Instant death." However, with the right DM, the Combat and Tactics version can work very well. He just has to get used to the terminology used in the descriptions. The way it works is this. The character succeeds in getting a Critical Hit. The opponent rolls a saving throw (originally it was vs Death, in 3.5 it would be a DC 20 vs Reflex, and in 5th Edition it would be a DEX save, to represent the character rolling with the blow). If he succeeds in the saving throw, he takes Critical/Double Damage as per usual. If he fails his saving throw, the DM rolls on the appropriate table, determined by the type of weapon used and the location of the Critical Hit (head, arm, leg, etc). The dice rolled is determined by the size of the weapon vs the size of the opponent (so you won't be decapitating an ogre with a dagger for instance). Then the DM reads the description of the Critical Effect to the group. One thing that I don't like about the C&T Critical Effect system is that certain weapons which traditionally and historically should be able to decapitate or bisect an opponent (the katana and the bastard sword for instance) are incapable of doing so "because they're not the right size" if the Critical Effect rules are played RAW. So I came up with a house rule for the house rule. A character's To Hit bonus from STR, DEX, Weapon Focus, Weapon Enchantment (but not BAB), etc are added to the Critical Effect Roll. This gives a character a slightly better chance at getting the really cool Critical Effects with "the wrong sized weapon" while not necessarily being game breaking. And even if a character is lucky enough to be able to roll large enough dice to get the cool Critical Effects, and has enough of the bonuses to boost his chances of getting the cool Critical Effects, he STILL has to actually ROLL a Nat 20, AND his opponent is going to have to FAIL their saving throw vs Reflex/DEX. So they won't be rolling Critical Effects ALL of the time.

We have two homebrew rules that are pretty sweet. The first is pretty common and that's that it's a bonus action to take a potion and an action to drink it fully and not have to roll dice. It's also an action to feed it to a downed player but you still have to roll for hp. The other is that we get a feat every two levels, unless we earn one on the way somewhere; i.e. my warforged wildfire druid had an open heart transplant done trading his heartwood for Themberchaud's heart. He picked up the Aberrant Dragon Mark feat giving him Green Flame Blade and Shield and resistance to fire damage. It also changed his race from warforged goe high elf and he has permanent heartburn. Edit- as a long time player, I argued against the second rule but was voted down. The DM now realizes his mistake (we're lvl17 now with 8 or 9 feats each plus all of our ASI's). He has to run back to back CR21 encounters with no resting to really make it a challenge.

I'm not sure I would call it homebrew as much as common sense. But I do two things when it comes to character creation and leveling: -First all players can roll for their stats if they so choose (obviously they have to do so at the table). If the rolls are bad they are allowed to switch to point buy or standard array. I will never force a player to go into a campaign with a below average character. -Second whenever players are calculating their new HP on a level up, if they roll below the average they can take the average. So if an artificer rolls a d8 and gets a 1-4 they can take that 5 in parentheses. Again I would really call this a homebrew rule they're both built into the PHB but I love giving my players the excitement of a gamble for a boost without locking them into a punishment if they fail. It's honestly probably not a common problem because point buy and standard array are most groups' go to methods, but I always let my players know the option and recently my group added a sorcerer that rolled REALLY well. She had no negative stats, two at zero, and her spellcasting stat with her racial bonuses was a whopping 19.

I normally give my players the option of rolling or to RP the encounter. It all depends on the player's skill.

Death saves, I (DM) roll them. Any time a player has gone down, its been as tense as that situation should be. Brutal Criticals. Instead of doubling the roll, assume max damage and roll for the EXTRA damage, so a D8 weapon does 8+d8+mod. Exhaustion, we've adopted the new rules for (-1 to all d20 throws per level) rather than the convoluted mess as written.

I have a critical role rule if you get 20 on your hit roll, it does double your attack roll damage. If you roll max damage it does double the damage. I allow the rules to stack.

I always felt the 5e necromancer play style needed work, so me and GM worked out a solution. Undead minions tend to bog things down even more than others, since they persist and need to be managed outside of combat. Not to mention your options for what you can animate is limited and (let's be honest) lame unless you plan on making gimmicky builds. (A 6th level slot for a few Ghouls?) So I proposed that Animating Undead functions like the Druids Wildshape! What does that mean? Simple! If there's a stat block for it, and you have the appropriate corpse, you can animate it! So long as it's of the right CR, like the Druids Wildshape table. If you want to have multiple minions, their *collective CR* cannot exceed that max CR, with a maximum number of creatures equal to your Proficiency Bonus. AND subclasses that specialize in undead (like Necromancy Wizard, Death Cleric, Spores Druid) will have their table progress like the Moon Druid's Wildshape instead. This not only improves their usefulness, but it creates almost a mini-game of trying to find the correct corpse, and gives the DM another option of reward for the players. Want an Ogre Zombie? Go find yourself an Ogre bounty. Want a Ghoul and or Ghast? I hear this Band of Cannibals attacking this village is led by a half elf. A beholder zombie? Well guess what the big bad of this arc is for the lvl 13 party?

I tried calling for less rolls if a character should be able to do something based on their stats/abilities, my group didn't like it 🤷🏼 they wanted the chaos of the dice rolls. So they got it, i call for rolls that i don't think should be needed.

Have the DM roll the death saves. It keeps everyone on their toes.

DM persuasion. Once per game if a player wants to do something really crazy, creative, or stupid they can roll DM persuasion. The roll is made with no modifiers with a DC of 15.

So, in my current campaign, the players can gain skill proficiency and feats through progression. For example, in order to get the Fire Initiate feat, a player would have to cast 50 fire elemental spells. To gain half proficiency in a skill that you don't you would have to succeed in 10 skill checks, then 30 for proficiency, and then another 50 to gain expertise.

Use a d10 per 10 feet for fall damage instead of the standard d6. Also, there is no maximum cap to the amount of damage you can take from falling.

MythCraft rather than DnD. Magic plays a big part in gameplay; most classes can access at least one of the 5 different Magic sources, and even those that don’t can choose to do so. Something I personally don’t like though is that the rules for critical hits with Magic are very restrictive; except for very specific spells, the only benefit besides a guaranteed hit Magic gets is the Arcane Source having reduced SP cost. Thus I made a house rule, that I don’t think my players know is a house rule; if you critical hit with a spell, maximize its damage and add the caster’s casting attribute to the damage. It’s a fairly significant power boost, but not extraordinary, that’s made combat quicker and a lot more fun in a few instances. Will probably tweak it a bit in the future though, as it might be a little too strong with a few of the spells my players have access to.

If you roll a nat 20 on a dex save then you can choose to take no damage, or take half damage alongside another player that you save

I think it‘s very interesting, how many of you are Pro-Open death saves and Plot-armor. It‘s a totally fine opinion, though personally I love the tension hidden death-saves bring and hate plot-armor. If my characters die, they die. A game has to have a fail-state, for me to have fun

this leads to some rely crazy shit, but what we do at my/our table, is we count nat 20s at duble damage. not extra, dubble. and not dirty 20s because of bonuses, pure 20s qualafy. they are pretty low levle RN, but this was probably a mistake

Does it only apply to dnd? Because I have started running a modified blades in the dark game. I've homebrewed magic into it, and added seven ultra powerful magic items. The seven millenium relics. They each have a very strong power, like one that reads everyone's mind and one that can alter the dice rolls and one that can break any curse. The new rules are being very well taken by the 4 players I have, also one of them has gone power hungry and have decided to eventually collect all 7 millenium relics. Good luck to him, as the other crime bosses in town have each one item, and thats why they ARE in power and at war with each other. It shows a lot of potential, in my opinion

Counter point to the language thing and not knowing how to talk it after high school is because no one cared about it and it was a mandatory class. 2 years is a great to speak a language. Especially with non english classes that have alphabets.

The brutal crit thing sounds very fun, but I see some problems Champ fighter with more likely crits Do smites work with it? If so… yikes Orc and barbarian brutal crits fit will with this though

Nat 1's don't make you automatically fail. You will roll another d20 to confirm and if it's below 10 then how far below it dictates how funny it is. Above 10 and it's treated as a normal hit. Nat 20's get banked for later use in a non combat situation.

Neat

Please, could you lower the volume of the intro sound at 0:10? It's always much louder than the rest of the video, and it's quite jarring. Thank you.

Blind death saves were the worst idea I’ve ever put into practice we dropped it after session 2