Yeah... This just disproportionately shifts the balance towards classes and subclasses that just get a lot of spells anyway. Having less known spells now becomes an additional hindrance because you could lose the few things you can do well to a bad roll. Interesting idea, but I don't like stuff that takes away player agency.

I have an even more radical idea: play a game with actual good rules that encourage narrative storytelling and excitement instead of abstract number crunching

Finding the video a year later, but an easy conversion for removing hit points is to just use the number of dice rolled instead of rolling dice. Most weapons just roll 1 die, so they would give 1 hit. A fireball is 8d6, so it would deal 8 hits, or 4 on a successful save. It's a quick and simple way to run that particular conversion that more or less follows 5e's intended balance. You might need a few extra steps, like figuring out how to modify barbarian rage for a system with hits instead of HP. Off the cuff, I imagine you could just halve the hits taken, rounded down but cumulative for the fight. Like 1 hit in the first round is rounded to zero hits. But the next hit makes a total of 2, so the raging barb is treated as having taken 1 hit in the fight. Dunno if it would be hard to manage in play, but that still generally follows the intended balance curve.

FIRE ZE LAZER! Miss your videos House DM.

I'm happy people are homebrewing, but you do realize other systems exist right? many which already have rules you want and were made by good people who aren't racist or using AI art.

There are countless ways to change to the description of how damaged a character is or what happens. The example you give in the beginning of the Fire Giant who strikes the PC and they have Hp:5 remaining. Can be Discribed as " The Fire Giant swings his broad sword and hits you so hard it sends you flying backwards causing 40 points of damage out of 45 total...leaving you with only Hp:5 remaining. Make a DC15 Con with disadvantage or you fall unconscious due to the viscous blow. This example is very easy to adjust as the PC is technically bloody loosing more than 1/2 of there total Hp. in a single attack from the Fire Giant. You can see how different the outcome might be. The idea you give in armor reducing damage is also something l use but do it slightly different using the bonus that the armor gives as the same reduced value of damage it has. If the PC is hit & the damage is greater than the armor bonus then the PC makes a DC to see how bad the armor is damaged. A failed DC roll reduce the AC or posably destroy the armor over time. Using the same example from above and assuming that the PC has Plate mail & Shield the DC=8 needed to save reducing the total damage caused by 20. The PC is no longer bloodied but still needs to make a DC 15 Dex to avoid being thrown backwards. The armor is dented but the AC remains unaffected. Coast 20 Gold to repair

We used to play AD&D 2nd Edition and Midgard (and Twilight 2000 and Aliens and Shadowrun and Earthdawn) in Midgard you had LP (Lebenspunkte/literally lifepoints) and AP/Ausdauerpunkte/Endurance points, armor protected by deducting LP loss, but you still lost AP. So you could go either uncounscious when your AP dropped to 0 or die when you reached 0 LP. I liked that better than the D&D style, was a bit more realistic, when wearing a Ritterrüstung/platearmor you where nearly unkillable (as in real life) but lost endurance and could go k.o.

To me, the thing that hurts the fun of dnd combat is it being turn based. I would love to see a house rule where combat ISN’T turn based

Sorry to be a math nerd. But technically, there is a 0% chance of rolling infinite damage with exploding dice. 🤓

hmm… not sure Brandish, looks like the game is missing something

You just reinvented the wheel. Good job

Or you could just play a different game that did not have hit points. There are different games with different rule systems. Adding this to D&D just messes up a lot of spells and feats. I am not saying that what you are saying is bad, but for that I am going to play a game like savage worlds. Your fireball rule does not work with other area spells.

Instead of that improved critical hits, I instead rule that you double EVERYTHING. So double the dice and double the modifiers.

The HiBRiD game does both of these

How do you not know about exploding dice 😭

5:00 it's simple. Every 10 potential points of damage or less is equal to 1 hit. Oh but then the long sword and short sword do the same damage. Yeah no shit, what did you expect? As for mobs each device their HP by 10 and round up. Thank me. L8er. you are inventing hot water

I'm not going to watch this video but the title caught my eye...literally the entire D&D system is built around HP and rolls...so change "D&D" in the title to "TTRPG" and it will be more accurate. "Play this game but change out all the mechanics" is retarded...just play a different ttrpg.

Noice

This looks great. can you release more content? It's been so long! I miss your videos. Especially the shadowdark ones.

You should play the Witcher ttrpg

Does this work with b/x?

I use a spell point system. Your level determnines the amount of points you have (a chart). Your level also determines how many spell points you have to keep in reserve. Those are what keep you alive, your heart pumping, you lungs breathing, brain firing, etc. You can draw on those reserve points in an emergency, but there can be some pretty serious side effects from doing so. Now, to provide some kind of speed bump to a player casting fireball over and over and over, each subsequent cast of the same spell in a combat encounter DOUBLES in cost. Cantrips cost one point to cast regardless of the number of times you cast the same spell. This concept came from the David Eddings book series, and was referred to as the "Will and the Way". Enjoy!

This video is awesome for three reasons: 1 - It promulgates an awesome RPG booklet and setting. 2 - It's a good summary if you don't have (immediate) access to the book. (I own a copy of VDS, but I'm traveling and don't have it on me at the time of this comment.) 3 - It's sharable with people who don't own VDS. (Nice for GMs to send players.) Bonus: great background music choices.

This video was fantastic - DO like the longer form. Thank you!

I bought the phb! So many tables in their built to help the DM make really interesting dungeons and encounters and other things. It's truly an amazing book for its relatively small size.

How about ritual casting?

The DR (damage reduction) house rule proposed here is a great suggestion AC's problem is that it's basically just evasion, an all or nothing hit where your armor doesn't feel like it protects you from harm any more than a robed wizard if it connects. (That sounds like it should be a dex save, at that) Alternatively, armor could also be treated as additional armor hit points, AHP, which would need to he depleted first, similar to how sci-fi energy shields work.

EZD6!!!!

Really interesting ideas, but a terrible system that shows a lack of understanding of the confines of 5e. Your ideas could definitely be used to make a really cool system on its own, or possibly in another system though.

Alot of these were posited in the 80s in newsgroups and the slew of games thatwere released. The new generation is just recreating things that have been done before.

HiBRiD does not use Armor Class. Armor absorbs damage and all enemies only require a 10 or 15 to hit depending if they are fast natratively

Had to come back here and tell you that I’m so hooked on “Tale of the Manticore” This is one of the coolest concepts ever. Thanks for the recommendation!!!

It would not work because barbarians, casters, and monks would be one-shotted.

Every dnd book should open with “The DM has complete control over rules and ruling and anything that is within or excluded from the game system” “Homebrew” is a new concept. That used to be the norm. Now every PC is a rules lawyer

Great video!! But can I ask (not sure if it was my eyes) do did your foam warp slightly?? And if it did how did you go about unwrapping the pieces?

Stop calling them short, it's sensitive matter 😢

Cool UDT, House!

Honeslty this is just wrath and glory combat rule set just put into dnd 5e lol good video all the same

Unreliable magic just sucks. It's a sad way to deal with power... And Frostgrave is a pretty bad game tbh.

Wow, you fix one problem (HP) and you have 1000 more problems to solve (damage for every weapon and spells and features)? Sometimes, we gotta learn how to shut up and accept what is.

IMO It’s easier to just swap the system for something rules light tbh. Now, don’t ever tell this to my players, but I don’t use HP for monsters at all. When they roll damage , they tell me some kind of number they calculated but all I do is use it to decide roughly how long should each monster stay in fight. Chaff dudes? One hit kills. Regular opponents? Two hits. Three at most if players rolled garbage. Lieutenants and alike? Four three-hits. Bosses? Enough for combat to last 4-6 rounds. It is all about reading just how into it the players are. If I see player excited because they think they finally dropped the enemy they had problems with, it will die then and there. If they seem tired, because they’ve been whiffing/plinking the boss for 3 rounds, I’ll not make them fight it 6 more and just let it die to next good solid hit/crit/combo. My players seem to love my combat encounters and are always excited about them. But they can’t ever know the truth of my laziness. 😅 That said, my monsters are dealing heavy damage. I keep it pretty dangerous so players feel the pressure when a single attack can potentially drop them on a crit.

Hi Jake, I enjoy your videos thankyou. Its not an RPG channel, but If you are looking for interesting informative medieval content, I recommend the Historysquad.

3:30 this also buffs tiny hut and other safe place-making abilities. i will definitely be using this

idk what Jake/House DM's up to these days but I love these vids and I hope he's doing well!

You know what's even better than group initiative? NO initiative.

lol my minimalist kit is my brain, my phone with notes and dice

Love this video! There are a lot of problems in D&D that are solved other TTRPGs, including the one that my subscribers are creating now! CHECK IT OUT!

Love the figures but they’re just a bit too large for 28mm dwarfs imho.

6-8 encounters is both extremely high for adventuring on the surface and potentially quite low for classic dungeon crawls. The party traveling through a dangerous woodland from one destination to another? Idk… one, maybe two or three encounters in a day? In theory, they should be able to gain enough knowledge or wherewithal to avoid angry bears, bandits, and brownies along the way. Whereas in a densely-packed dungeon, which could have thirty rooms or more, most of which have either traps, treasures, or foes, they might have dozens of encounters or other challenges that take hp or magical resources. I let my players long rest in dungeons, but they have to a) have no nearby, detectable threat, b) they must be able to suitably make camp, and c) if they want to benefit from any healing, they need field bandages or the like and must expend them (this goes for short rest healing too).