Are D&D House Rules Right for You?

[@GinnyDi]

Give your dice the treatment they deserve with Dwarven Forge Reliquaries - Epic thrones for legendary dice! bit.ly/ginnydi

[@apple-macaron2576]

congratulations of almost reaching 300k, just 1k to go!

[@lschantz64]

I liked this video just off of the title, and I am sorry for what ever happens in the comments.

[@SilverDungeoneer]

I thought for the longest time healing word did take an action and was just a worse version of Cure Wounds. Now it makes sense why they are the same level spell.

[@chemgeektim]

I've already pledged. And figured you need some nice shiny math rock altars. *grin*

[@catindigo9907]

I love your dice....

[@levishackelton4437]

My fav house rule in my group: 5e healing potions: If you take a potion as an action, you get full healing. Because you are making sure you drink the whole thing by using your action. So 2d4+2=10 healing. If you take a potion as a bonus action, you roll like normal. Because you’re drinking it in a rush, so some could spill out rather than getting to drink all of it. Now you could still roll good, which is the equivalent of you drinking it fast but you managed not to spill any.

[@fencserx9423]

I’m stealing this.

[@mickeysmagic89]

Found this one recently. Haven’t had much opportunity yet to use it (RP sessions, am I right?), but the next dungeon they delve into, I’m sure it’ll get its use

[@davidmc8478]

Just implemented this, it’s great. I combined with with drinking a healing potion is a bonus action (but no other potions)

[@rmonogue]

We do this, and include the rule that feeding a potion to another character is always a full action with the usual die roll. It’s harder to give it to someone else without spilling =)

[@levishackelton4437]

@@rmonogue Same here, it just makes sense. ☺️

[@bluj1143]

I feel like it is a pretty commonly accepted thing when it comes to infinite ammo that you are adopting the 'we don't talk about it' approach. You don't bring it up, and I just assume you always have another arrow and filled up when you went to town last time. No shenanigans.

[@realityveil6151]

So here's the thing with that: arrow use stacks up FAST even at mid level. A ranger or fighter going for a machinegun build absolutely SHITS arrows. A quiver holds 20 (don't @ me about this number. Different editions use different numbers. I don't care). You have to have a quiver to shoot, so once you burn through 20 arrows, you either need another quiver which means unequipping this one, fumbling through your bag of holding for another one, and equipping another one. Further, the little hamlets and villages you travel through probably doing have 20 arrows they'd even be willing to part with. Arrows are a logistical headache. Arrow counting is specific to counting this sort of behavior.

[@futuza]

My favorite house rule that I implement in my games after having another DM introduce it to me is: journal entries allow the player to start the session with Inspiration. Essentially players can write a journal entry from their characters perspective of things during the week (before the next session starts), which the DM and (usually) other players can view on an online forum of some sort. I love this because it helps me get to know the player's characters better, their intentions, plans, ambitions, as well as indirectly what the players themselves want to see happen in the game. Additionally it also allows the other players to also learn this and even figure out their own characters better. Granted it gives players with more time and investment an advantage (which seems fair to me lol).

[@obsidiannightwolfe13]

I'm gonna ask my players if they'd like to implement this one.

[@futuza]

@@obsidiannightwolfe13 Good luck! Hope they like it/use it. (And remember you can still give out Inspiration for other things, this is just a way for them to guarantee they get one at the start of the session).

[@EmmaPlayzRoblox]

I give players inspiration at the start of a session for recapping the previous session for me, it makes players pay more attention to what happened.

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

My main house rule today is : "Ginny that shirt is AMAZING"

[@GinnyDi]

THANKS! It's from Morningwitch!

[@CertainlyTrying]

Very true

[@SonsOfLorgar]

I want a shirt like that too, let's see if they sell it in mens pattern XXL ^^

[@thebuffmerman9932]

Just went to the comments for this specifically, the hair-shirt combo is phenomenal 👌

[@adibaby96]

It has strong bisexual energy and I want it

[@tsnap4]

Most people: House rules are controversial and need to be examined. Me and the other DMs in my group (about 1/2 of us): I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter them further* *After due discussion with players

[@MagusAgrippa8]

I’ve always got a heckton of house rules in my games xD.

[@luizurtiga]

Most people: My house rules are a slightly tweaked spell and +2 for something Me and the other DMs in my group: So the next game will be caster only, all cleric spells won't work because of the lore, I will add those two mechanics stolen from an entirely different system, all skills are changed, the progression will be gold for xp and the items and values will be from this homebrew book

[@shallendor]

We have a house rule that you get to speak up to 10 words per round in combat! 10 words in 6 seconds also makes sens!

[@scottgrant1635]

I go over my house rules in Session Zero, and I explain why I have them. If adding a new house rule later on, I'll explain the idea to the players and we discuss it before we start actually playing D&D (in other words, I don't interrupt the game for this discussion.) If the players agree to the new rule, we'll "play-test" it for one or two sessions, then we'll discuss if the rule did what we expected, if it needs tweaked, or simply dropped.

[@Falruk]

My current house rules: Healing potions always heal full amount - they're valuable so can't have that many of them.. Still action to make it a more tactical choice in combat Flanking gives +2 to attack Multiple sources of advantage/disadvantage add +2 or -2 to attack Secret death saving throws (Curse of Strahd, fits the horror theme) Considering Medicine check to stabilize an unconcious player works like having them roll another Death Saving Throw, risking to make it worse or even get them back to alive with a nat 20 The rule you mentioned about hitting armor class giving resistance to the damage. Matthew Mercers rules for skill challenge to resurrect a dead PC

[@TransGuyShane]

I love Ginny so much. As a dm I find her videos informative and easy to follow and I suggest her to my players as the best place for easy to follow and creative tips and info ♡ I have a basic house rule - its for everyone, npc pc or enemy, if you roll their ac exactly you hit them. Also no really a rule more advice from a dm pov - but my player was looking for water so I made her a bag of sweets that replenished her fluids for 24 hours and rolled a dice to see how many sweets she got. She now has 5 days worth of water she can fit into a tiny pouch rather than having to carry 5 days worth of liquid around with her. My advice is - it's okay to use or modify existing things or create new things, at the end of the day as long as you are all having fun thats what matters. My player is level one so I also moded a animated armour to be so Rusty his move speed was 10ft and he can't move his arms more than 45% so he can't lift his arms due to rusting. You are not trying to kill your players right off the bat, let them earn their death. In our first session the player wanted to jump out a tree but the fall damage would have killed her right out so I didn't let her do it. If your players are new to dnd be forgiving while they learn the ropes. I've been into dnd for years but this is my players first campaign so I want to ease her in and in my opinion we will all get more out of the game this way. At the end of the day you are playing to have fun ♡ just enjoy yourselves.

[@jameshwren]

The biggest thing about house rules is clearly and concisely explaining them at Session Zero. Walk through the house rules in very specific detail, that way everyone can voice their concerns. I think we talked about Choking for 30 minutes to understand how you can chocke or be choked.

[@Silesh]

Kinky

[@satiricalsatyr9463]

A house rule I implement in most of my games is that regardless of the class and level I will allow a player to invent new things whether it be a spell (must be of a class and level your character has access to) or a weapon (same requirements as spells), or even a tool (trickier) however I require them to go over it with me so as to hopefully not break the game. I have had a bard player ask to combine a rapier and a lyre into 1 object that we added a few complications to and another time we made a spell to summon some constructs like any of the conjure lesser whatever spells. We also use the nat 1 random tables and nat 20 special effects (like make them blind for a couple turns by going for their eyes)

[@avalonp6469]

GOD when I was a beginner DM I didn't understand how attack of opportunity worked so I was the jerk DM who got rid of it for the first few sessions... then I was able to connect the dots and felt SO BAD for getting rid of it!! g r o w t h

[@inowar7981]

man, attacks of opportunity suck, though. they discourage tactical movement and usually slow the game down. very sad. well. not opportunity attacks full stop, but provoking them by moving away. if someone has a specific ability, they're always looking to use it, so there's no need to worry about that.

[@carinabrucki2095]

I replay this video again and again just to hear Ginny Di say "Today, I woke up and chose violence." It makes my day.😂

[@booketoiles1600]

I've always played more on the freeform side of Roleplay than D&D & others, but one time a DM changed the established rules was when an easter egg led to an incidental kaiju battle, and to make its more than spectators, the DM decided the area was overflowing with magic, so all our magical attacks would have +10d20 dmg. Throwing our whole pile of dices to laser the Kaiju was incredibly fun :3

[@ronrossbach8449]

"Look, if she didn't want me to buy stuff, she shouldn't put her wallet in the same bag as her dice." Legendary! :D

[@jetvulcan2020]

Ginny's ads are so good and you got love the characters of pink and blue D20

[@CalderTheArtist]

As a game design alumni who wants to go into TTRPG's eventually, homebrew rules are super important to me and my games. I have an entire channel in my D&D discord dedicated to my house rules, most of them are minor tweaks on RAW, like uncapping fall damage, variant attunement timing, and a different method for DM inspiration, but others are completely new mechanics like upcasting using a spell slot and levels of exhaustion combined to be able to cast a spell at the combined total's level (level 4 spell slot + 2 levels of exhaustion = level 6 spell slot). A few of the 18 rules in there right now are just explaining things like rule of cool, HDYWTDT, you can certainly try, that kind of stuff, cause my players are generally new and I find it helpful to write these things down for them. And any rule that's potentially too powerful in any direction (like the one that makes crits do max die damage + roll + modifier) are listed as subject to change and I have made it very clear I could get rid of or change them at any time if it feels unfair. Then even some rules are completely irrelevant during gameplay and deal with character creation like my own method of rolling for stats that makes the characters more powerful (meaning I can throw more challenging things at them and they can feel more heroic) and making Intelligence more useful outside of Artificers and Wizards, giving them proficiency and expertise in different skills based on their INT modifier. A lot of my house rules are really focused on empowering my players, now that I think about it. 😅 I also find that despite the fact that they're all listed and readily available, my players will often forget about the more obscure rules (which is to be expected, we play like once a month and they're mostly all new players), so it's invaluable that I remember them and can remind my players of them mid-game. If we played in person I'd probably make up a 10 commandments style graphic to hang on the wall about my homebrew rules lmao. (Also a lot of these rules are taken from XPtoLevel3, with some minor tweaks here and there)

[@iterumm]

my table is mostly casters and we decided to ignore required materials for spells, but materials they grab on the way can be used to expand a spell. our barbarian was in favor as well so it goes well for us. one player is a druid so she collects lots of fun things to use

[@620n1]

I've found that creative players can break anything in game. I absolutely love having them come up with something I didn't think of. Of course, I do have a house rule of veto rights. If something they want to do is way beyond scope I can say no.

[@Gliscorsbounty]

At the table we play at, one of the major house rules is that if you are attacked and the opponent tolls a natural 1 you can use your reaction to get an attack of opportunity.

[@rh2219]

I'm sure rouges love the exploding damage die rule, when you just roll ten million dice for sneak attack

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

Great, really in depth video :) Thanks I've got a very important rule of thumb to add to the list. If or when you want to change something in the game, keep in mind that is is generally better to BUFF something than it is to NERF it. No one likes it if something is taken away from them, while helping someone who needs it is great for the entire table.

[@AlwaysSmilesBack]

My favorite house rule is that on a nat 20 saving throw you take no damage. My first dm did that and I always implement it when I run games!

[@crtwrght]

This was interesting, particularly your point that a house rule should benefit all players equally, which I must confess I don't always abide by. When one of my friends wants to play a sub-optimal sub-class because they have a character in mind or really like the flavour I'll often make adjustments to the class, in concert with the player in question and the table at large, to try and even the playing field and I guess I've always considered these adjustments to be houserules. An example I'm fond of is modifications to Berserker Barbarian's Frenzied Rage, allowing them to immediately attack as part of the bonus action when entering the frenzy and also giving them a saving throw similar to the Level 11 Barabarian feature Relentless Rage (DC10 Con, increasing by 5 for each success resetting on a long rest) to avoid the exhaustion from using Frenzy so that they have a decent chance of using their core ability more than twice in a day without crippling themselves.

[@JossCard42]

My first D&D group in High School had a house rule we called the OptimusPrime/Megatron rule. This came from the era where you had to confirm critical hits (a 20 was a confirmed hit, but you had to roll again and beat the AC of the target in order to deal critical damage) and the rule was that if you rolled a 20 to confirm, you rolled a third time. If you rolled a 20 on that, you rolled an 'Optimus Prime' which insta-killed the target, no matter how improbable or seemingly impossible it was. One example was they were fighting a Lord of Hell and rolled 3 20s. An arrow that a party member had massively fumbled on from several campaigns ago had slipped through a hole in time and space and struck the demon right in the heart. The other side was 3 consecutive 1s. Rolling a 'Megatron' caused your character to die. A stroke, congenital heart defect, or a bizzare accident took them out. We eventually took this for any time someone rolled a 20 or a 1, even on verbal skill checks. If you got an Optimus Prime on a skill check, you received a permanent +1 bonus on that skill by discovering some new or novel way of approaching it. Rolling a Megatron caused a -1 on that skill as they develop a bad habit that impedes their successful execution of that skill.

[@Mithguar]

Few house rules i like to play with: -bonus action healing potion -glancing blows (if roll to hit is exactly the AC of the target, damage is halved). More often then not, it helps players take less damage. Rules i don't like and think they make game worse: - Encumbrance variant rule. It just adds more book keeping and punishes players who likes to carry adventuring tools to often execute creative ideas. With this rule in action, most characters will have lowered movement speed just from their starting equipment. It also punishes players in heavy armour. That armour already have str requirement to cover for that as well as stealth disadvantage. And honestly, most many tables that run this rule, don't even bother tracking it once the game start. This reminds me people who come up with rules like weapon durability etc. Rules that just add more book keeping to the game but don't really add much to the game itself.

[@PastelPebbles]

as a recent dm, i made some meme rules to add spice to our (and my) STR dumping characters. all weapons can be dual weilded, and all weapons are versitile within reason. we have a goliath pc named tiffany with two greatswords. its been going well.

[@93magnetic]

House rule: when rolling initiative a nat 20 will allow you to chose where you want to be in initiative. That way players can get excited by a nat 20 in initiative and it has some strategic elements.

[@NoahOMorainRush]

I'm prepping to start DMing a campaign for the first time for my little sisters, and I have a couple of houserules I want to use, and one that I'm particularly looking forward to is a modification to how damage types work. There's so many fun damage types in D&D but unless they're coming from a spell that specifically mentions added effects, the damage alone is just flavour-I decided to write a list of bonus effects that can happen as a result of each damage type (other than bludgeoning/piercing/slashing). I wanted these to be fun but not every-time occurrances, and at first I started writing a system for how to determine when each effect would happen and then the target has to make a save against it and blah blah blah... and then I was like, "This is so freaking complicated, this doesn't feel like 5e. New idea: it just happens on a crit. Boom. Done." I'm much happier with it now, and every type of damage, on a crit, will apply a unique condition until the end of the target's next turn, and most of them have an extra effect if the crit effect kills the target (e.g. spellcaster crits on a Fire Bolt that kills the enemy, they burn to ash).

[@Average-Joe851]

I made/found (don't remember which) a variation of the infinite non-magic ammo rule. Basically it added a clause of "within reason". This little clause does many little things to the rule. The primary one is it allows you to shut down the 4:39 example quickly by saying "Ok you sold the quiver of 100 arrows you currently have on hand. Don't expect to have any arrows for the next day's worth of encounters". It also allows the DM to create swarm encounters that the party is definitely suppose run away from by saying something along the lines of "After stopping the first 80 or so goblins your quiver starts feeling a bit empty as it starts running out of arrows". This is an example of a "give and take" homebrew balancing policy. I the DM give the player a way to enjoy the game without having to keep track of ammo, however, if they use the infinite ammo ruling they are doing so with the understanding of they give the DM control of saying when they are out of ammo. However, the Player can choose to keep track of their own ammo but they have to let the DM which variation they are using.

[@theanachronisticlife8574]

Most of our game’s house rules came from the dm mixing up his editions and when we realized the ruling was wrong he decided to keep for consistency. Biggest example is adding proficiency to damage in that campaign. Other things were choices. Basic potions are easier to brew just spending downtime in the woods and in camp because we were all nature characters with no healers. And drinking a potion is a bonus action, but feeding one to an unconscious person an action.

[@yuna_bean]

thank you, miss professor ginny. I always learn so much about d&d from your videos. and it’s always stuff not touched on in most other d&d vids

[@chickencurry420]

I came up with a house rule that I think I'll call "Reference Rewards" I like to pepper in little references to other media here and there. (And since my campaign takes place in the Fallout universe, it works pretty well) And if any of the players spot the reference, I'll reward their character with something related to it. For example I have a Fight Club reference and whoever notices it will find a bar of soap somewhere. It's not much but it's an extra lil somethin to make it just a bit more fun. And if they can find a creative use and they find the Big Bad with that bar of soap, or use it to bypass something that I intended to be difficult, then I'll reward them for their creativity.

[@mirandamay668]

In our game, during initiative rolls, if you roll a Nat 20 you get an extra action during the first round, and if you roll a Nat 1 you lose your action or bonus action for the first round. Adds a little fun when you roll a Nat 20 and still come in behind the rogue!

[@koboldprime2257]

Homebrew is Extremely viable. Just talk to each other and see if the table is in accordance. I made Everybody roll for counter spell and dispel regardless of the target spell level and everyone had a blast. TBH and DMG are more like _guidelines_ instead of actual rules.

[@stankulp1008]

starting out in 'first edition' (1978), every DM I played with was the overlord and there were no expectations that anything in the book was canon. Everyone had different rules and even different invented creatures. There were simple and more complicated worlds and everything was new from one DM to the next. I do like the addition of skill points and other major changes. One of my sons has most of the rule limits and statistics for everything from character creation to sell specifics and weapon costs and damage output memorized in both 5th ed and 3.5.

[@JackAttackMLP]

I DM'd for a table of 12 new players for a few weeks in school. Dice going of the table was constant when rolling, so I implemented a temporary house rule to try to remind them to roll a little softer, and that any dice that land off the table was a natural 1. However, I would forgive this often, as it happened way less when the rule was implemented. I don't think I actually had to reinforce it, because after it was mainly actual accidents.

[@vilehero3621]

I like giving options to players that are outside of the normal options like connecting with the hit upon a fall transferring some extra into the hit but requires a acrobatics roll to reduce the damage you received from the fall. Weapon wearing/honing material components. Locations of objects just in case of pick pockets certain locations are almost impossible to grab others super easy barely inconvenienced.

[@EvanByDesign]

I'm fairly new to DMing but so far I've been running games with a couple house rules that my players have really been enjoying. - Damage for critical attacks are calculated as one normal roll of damage dice plus the max damage of a normal roll instead of just rolling damage twice. - Inspiration Points can be used like hero points where you can use the point to re-roll OR you can roll a d6 and add it to the roll. This is great for those moments where you're just a few shy of success on a roll but re-rolling seems more statistically likely to result in a lower total.

[@DXKramer]

Only big house rule I've ever really implemented was that, when rolling hit points at level up, you were always guaranteed to gain at least 2 hit points. This goes back to when I played a 3.5 game, and my elf rogue had only 7 hit points by level 3 because I had an 8 Constitution and really bad luck with HP rolls.

[@shealupkes]

my rule is roll plus con or half plus one, sets both a floor and a ceiling in case luck isn't in their favor

[@Arcon1ous]

Most games I've played in have it that for HP, min on die is half die size rounded down, so 3 on a d6, 4 for a d8, 5 for a d10, or 6 for a d12, then add on modifiers, my current game we have an undersized party, so the DM has been letting us roll twice, use the better, and take half as min, because without that added bonus we just wouldn't have the HP to tank enough damage to really get through the campaign. Not stopped my character from nearly dying nearly a dozen times at this point, but that's the game for you. lol

[@baileywatts1304]

When I GM I have the player roll ALL of their hit dice, in addition to rolling one of the dice, and take the best result because nobody likes a couple bad rolls at low level holding them back forever. Minimum to go up is twice the con bonus or max roll if your con bonus is higher than the die type.

[@mickeysmagic89]

I let my player rolls and then choose the roll or the average

[@DannyboyO1]

My biggest house rule experiment was a system mash-up. I was newly getting into Cypher Systems and there's 2 main mechanics that were a really hard sell for my table. One is spending effort as this was, in their eyes, spending HP. The other was using Cyphers, the system's ubiquitous one-shot magic items. The players were far more familiar with D&D-ish games and wanted to hoard every resource. I have a Drama Deck for Savage Worlds. This is a bunch of one-off effects and odd bonuses that the players had worked with before, and understood were very much use-it-or-lose it, while the Cypher system resources were more like "eh, easy come, easy go." So I sorted through this deck of weird features and bonuses and threw out the ones that just flat-out did not work. But kept in the "I know a guy!" or "Find the treasure" or "lucky!" sorts of things. And especially the cards that make a combat worse... but give everyone at the table more cards. The deck's an optional resource for savage worlds, but... seeing my players looking for excuses to get some value out of their cards was really positive. It gave this specific group permission in ways that we all struggled with for manipulating the narrative. Another group, where I was a player, had TORG's version of this... and we had a bit of a house rule with that where the "nemesis" card got retired after the same player played it on the same NPC in 3 separate sessions. I'm thinking my next game, I'll have a new variant for some of the plot-manipulating ones. I'm thinking "Ambitions" and just let the players choose which ones they want, and let them trade them or exchange them until they spend them. Because a romance card when you're in a dungeon crawl isn't great (although there's some animes about that). It's an idea, and I'll have to see how a few other systems do things like it before I make any decisions. But I want it to be obvious to players that they have permission to change the narrative... and maybe also to signal to me that "Oh, this is why they're doing this, I need to yes-and better here."

[@miri3812]

I haven't thought much about house ruleing before because I feel like I'm still learning rules after 6 years of Pathfinder xD but I really like the role of giving a small bonus if you know what you want to do at the start of your turn. I will ask my DM about it. Thx for the cool video

[@erinford6963]

My husband's house rule when he DMs is: "You describe your nat 20s; I describe your nat 1s." No matter the outcome, it's brought some serious laughs to our table!

[@deltablaze77]

We pretty much figure with Arrows/Bolts that you have a quiver of about 20 or so and between retrieving them after a battle and crafting them during downtime we don't have to be too concerned with keeping track of ammo. Depending on how rare it is ammo for firearms is often very different and has to be tracked meticulously.

[@jamiehall1316]

We have a lot of house rules, but our dm is really patient about reminding us when we forget or have questions. One of the house rules we have that I actually really like is we a d6 (currently. We’re only level 6. I think it goes up to a d8 at some point.) for proficiency instead of a straight +4. It adds an extra level of chance, and to be honest… rolling more dice is so satisfying lol

[@MrDegan2]

Worst one I had was after I'd rolled up a paladin as the only front line in a party, the DM decided to tell us that they were not only running the "exhaustion if you go down" rule but also that paladin's divine smite have to be declared before the attack and will burn the spell slot even on a miss, I suddenly found better things to do with my time than play that game

[@briangronberg6507]

One I’ve come to like is adapted from 3.5e/PF 1e where you can choose an additional number of starting proficiencies (skill, language, tool, specific weapon, etc) equal to your intelligence modifiers. It discourages dumping INT for its own sake and can additional features like tool use that don’t get touched on much. I also like attuning to your proficiency bonus number of items, rather than having a strict cap at 3. It aligns well with “tiers of play” and I think it’s just fun. I’ve never used it, but I’d love to see how the dirty critical success/dirty critical fail rules (10 above or 10 below AC/DC) could be adapted to 5e mechanics beyond just flavor

[@KateCallen]

I don't know if this is a house rule so much as a game mechanic for a specific party that has a very well stocked base of operations, but we don't track ammunition or rations if they're within a day or two of their base. Once they're going out on longer trips, though, they do need to keep track (roughly).

[@CalamityCanyon]

Sure, Ginny's videos are amazing, but is NO ONE GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW AMAZING THAT MINTY LOOK IS? KEEP SERVING SIS

[@oniswdbs]

One of my House Rules is a soft bam on bards. I have found that bards are either the person that is going to have coitus with everything that can walk and be an overall distraction for the whole party or be one of the greatest role players you'll ever have at your table. So to discourage the 1st 1 and encourage the 2nd one my house rule is that a player playing a bard must utilize the instrument or actually sing when their Bard would be

[@ShallieDragon]

A problem I had in a previous group was a DM who didn't so much use lots of house rules as "played fast and loose with the rules of the game without telling anyone." Needless to say, it caused some frustration at the table.

[@fletchersaur4918]

My favourite house rules are the optional rules in the DMG and XGE

[@ItsMoonPiee]

Thanks for making vids like these, I'm going to attempt to DM soon, I'm kind of nervous! These videos are a nice, inviting place to start my research 🥰

[@casualallisterenjoyer1715]

personnally i like to add alot of homebrew and house rules since people i play with usually just want a chill time so we simplify and add, and since our table doesnt like armour we added our own things Perks is my personnaly homebrew, theres 3 stages on how good it is and we can upgrade perks give you dmg buffs on certain attack types or ac boost or multiattack etc they cost a bit though

[@GreedyAndreas]

In my game i use ammo in the same of of a minecraft bow with infinity if you have one, screw it use as many arrows as you want but if you sell or lose it, sucks to suck.

[@nordicson2835]

I DM for my daughters and my sons high school friends. My campaigns are home brew , with a lot of easter eggs from books , movies and comics , rules are there to keep the game moving but not be obstrusive... my daughter went away to college , played with a group, and was really sad about how much Work the game was.

[@Spartanunit5]

I bought the deluxe calendar Ginny! Looking forward to having a Ginnyverse quest for my players!!

[@DinoFN-cx1vr]

A fun house rule my DM has is on saves/checks 1 aren’t critical fails but 20 aren’t critical success.(This changes during battle)

[@Thomasstart13]

A house rule that my play group uses, that I love, is that if you crit on a melee or spell attack instead of rolling the damage dice twice you take the max damage then roll and add those together. It makes crits much more rewarding and it completely removes the possibility of dealing 2 damage off a crit which is always nice. Another house rule that was almost implemented, by a less than stellar DM, is one that basically mandated Wizards stay loyal to their subclass. In short the rule said, that when you level up and gain a new level of spell you must pick at least two spells from your chosen school before choosing to take any other spells of that level. Ie a 3rd level Necromancy Wizard had to take at least 2 3rd level Necromancy spells before being able to take any other 3rd level spells. Additionally, Wizards weren't allowed to unprepare spells of their chosen subclass unless they were being replaced by other spells of that subclass. The DM claimed it was to make Wizards more flavorful, but several of us felt it was meant to invalidate the play style of one of the players who basically wanted his Wizard to be a magical swiss army knife so he "didn't need to rely on anyone."

[@davidburns9766]

The wizard rule seems like something that would be awesome if it was suggested by the player who was playing the wizard, constraints make creativity flourish. But the DM imposing that sort of rule is horrible!

[@Thomasstart13]

@@davidburns9766 It seems fine as a self-imposed rule that you don't hold other people to, but beyond that it's kinda rude. While limitation does breed creativity, forcing people to play how you do is just wrong, no matter the game.

[@davidburns9766]

@@Thomasstart13 yeah a rule like that imposed by the DM isn’t furthering creativity it’s just constraining the player because of what the DM wants - which also would be fine if the entire group were happy with that rule from the get go.

[@akioaihara]

I have one houserule that is basically used in every of my campaigns. Its just giving players a level one feat, for the simple reason that they can be more creative when designing a character. Made two of my friends play as batman and robin basically and it was really cool. I dont know if thats like a common thing to do, but it fits my style of storytelling and worldbuilding perfectly, so I dont see a reason to not use it

[@futuza]

I love that you misspelled "feat" here, as now I'm imagining Batman and Robin with extra legs and crap.

[@akioaihara]

@@futuza Oh lol you are right xD My keyboard isnt english so the autocorrection must have taken the most simple solution here. Wich was not right, he has NOT more than two legs!

[@AdmiralTails]

Yeah, we used this at a recent table, but with some restrictions that ultimately came down to it not being a combat-specific feat (initially started off with not allowing things like sharpshooter and great weapon master) so that it would be used to further develop the character rather than just min-max combat capability.

[@akioaihara]

@@AdmiralTails Yeah i can see that being a good addition to that rule. Gladly, my players did not really go for that and instead took extra expertises or mobile.

[@tompadfoot3065]

The only two house rules I really use are -Roll for stats, but reroll anything below a 6 and you get an automatic 16 -Crit damage is max damage plus an extra roll

[@DarkVeghetta]

To date, I've made 17 house rules - some of which are multiple-page-long mechanical bundles, such as my Resistance overhaul, Luck stat implementation (think Pulp Call of Cthulhu), and Planeshifting rules. We've had *7* sessions so far. Send help. PS: It's fine though... for now - I'm DMing for a single player and he DMs for me in two other campaigns, with another one still in the planning phases.

[@user-ut4tk4ph5z]

The best houserule is to get your shoes off at the entrance, idk how somepeople can do otherwise

[@futuza]

You haven't seen my DM's filthy floor, my feet are cleaner, so no thanks.

[@user-ut4tk4ph5z]

@@futuza The floor is filthy cause u wear shoes inside, Just tell them to clean their fucking floor

[@katybechnikova2821]

The best house rule we use is that you need to train or hae a story reason for feats you take. If you want to take sharpshooter at lvl 4, better spend at least a bit of your downtime at lvl 3 practicing shooting the weapon you have.

[@pallasproserpina4118]

Combat isn’t enough training?

[@katybechnikova2821]

@@pallasproserpina4118 If it would be, everyone with that weapon would get that.

[@sammysgoldenhour]

I LOVE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC

[@AuntLoopy123]

I came up with simplified rules for scrolls, because dang! The RAW are so confusing, I can't keep track of them all, and I have enough on my plate. Likewise for alchemy, herbalism, medicine, and poison kits. We're more casual players, and we just want to have fun, not rules-lawyer, so simplified rules work well for us. Although, there have been times I've been tempted to up the challenge, by saying, "You need to gather and use the specific ingredients for spells!" That urge passes quickly, though, as soon as I consider my group. Maybe one member would actually do that.

[@achimsinn6189]

I evaluate rules like this: If applying a rule leads to several and long ingame discussions about whether or not the rules are fair or not or whether or not players / the DM is applying rules correctly or to players needing to ask how the rules works and other explaining it and then others correcting them which then leads to more discussions, that rule is not good for your table. But if adding a rule leads to less of such discussions it is definitly a good addition. Also with all rules keep in mind that the DM can always decide to not stick to the letters of any rule if he feels doing so exploits the game or leads to unintended results.

[@Karajorma]

I actually added a house rule once cause my players threatened to ridiculously abuse the official rule. The players wanted to dress up as guards to sneak in but had the issue that this would prevent the spellcasters from using spells. I pointed out that the rules were there to prevent non-proficient characters from getting the advantage of armour. They pointed out that instead of tying up and gagging captured spellcasters, simply started putting them in armour would be more effective since it would prevent verbal spells or use of subtle metamagic and that they would now start carrying a set of mail armour called "The chain of shame" just for that situation. So instead we agreed that instead if you wear armour you aren't proficient in, you don't gain any benefit from it (or dexterity) but can still spellcast. You still get the other penalties mostly unchanged (disadvantage on physical skill checks - wearing armour doesn't suddenly make you bad at history).

[@Rageaholic2097]

I don't track ammo but good luck if you think that means you can claim infinite arrows. I think of it more that a bow proficiency would include the skills to retrieve arrows and if they were broken be able to fix them or put the point on a new shaft, sort of a maintainence task that doesn't need detailing like sharpening swords and maintaining armour. Your initial 20 arrows will last forever as far as I'm concerned, but if you want 1000 arrows, find a shop. And wait a fortnight while they get your special order in.

[@tiredtortoise3396]

I usually build a few into the game world - for example, in my current one, magical resurrection has all but vanished save for Revivify and Reincarnation, and bringing the others back would involve some major quests. This is because the gods have left, another result being that Warlocks have replaced Clerics as the standard religious class, as people sought out other beings to replace the gods or appease them now that the gods no longer keep them at bay. Thus, another side-effect is that Clerics are capped at level 9, both PC and NPC, until the aforementioned and fully optional major quests. However, I create other ones depending on who my players are. I will soon be starting a campaign for three players, two of whom have never played before, so I have added a rule that, when levelling up, instead of choosing to either roll a Hit Die or take the fixed value, you roll the Hit Die and then choose whether to keep it or take the fixed value, as it would be a shame for new players to have disproportionately squishy characters due to bad rolls.

[@persephoneunderground845]

Important point- if the only problem with a potential house rule is a cheesy exploit, like the bottomless quiver, that's not necessarily a reason not to use it. You can always just tell the player "nope, nice try" if they try to do something like that. Or, if you want more explanation "if you want me to continue to hand-wave ammo, don't give me a reason not to". This is the benefit of it being a social setting and run by a DM, not a written book that you can't revise or adjust later- you really don't have to write everything defensively like a rule book or AL might. Just like wishing for more wishes from a genie should lead to "yes yes very clever *strikes character with lightning*".

[@persephonehades7547]

I haven't made this rule but I really feel the need to translate short rest abilities into long rest ones.

[@hannahedwards9837]

Communication is so important. I was all ready to implement the max damage crit rule and my players actually said no-they didn’t like the risk of the bad guys getting the crits too

[@Boone_Faustus]

The two house rules I like to use the most are: Everyone gets a feat at level 1 and Crits do max damage + roll the normal dice and add modifier

[@TheBierp]

I'm running a few games with this max crit rule. It's fun, at first, but goes off the charts pretty quickly. Rogues, smiting paladins, etc, just make it too powerful. I've made it clear to my players that we'll finish out these campaigns with the rules as we made them, but that this particular rule will not be used next campaign.

[@aldrinvendt8524]

My favorite house rule is changing crit damage. My rule is that the you deal max damage + an additional roll of the weapon, or spell die. Example: crit with a great sword would equal 12+str mod+ 2d6. Me and my players were getting annoyed at rolling 1s on our crits and having the chance to deal less damage with a crit than a normal hit. This guarantees more damage, but since it doesn't double the modifier, the damage cap is slightly lower.

[@Moleje1337]

My house rule is about consent between players concerning player versus player interactions. Choosing RP over rolls for PvP combat or PvP checks like sleight of hand aiming to steal from other players. If someone attacks you the targeted players gets to choose to just RP out of it or allow the roll. If someone tries to steal from another player the target can RP out of it or instead allow the roll. Things go by smoothly and sometimes players really want to have the conflicting interaction but it's their choice to involve themselves in that situation.

[@KnicKnac]

We had a house rule for an older edition. Nat 1's were -10 and Nat 20 was +10. Logic for this was at higher level play a level 15+ character shouldn't instantly fail or die from a one. (Ex. Nat 1 on a Listen check when you have +22 it'd be 12 instead of absolute fail) This was back in 3.5/3.75 days when you could be epic level and have lots of bonuses added.

[@overmycoldcoffee5322]

I’m currently using the ‘max healing from potions’ rule. We’ve not needed it for previous campaigns but the one I’m running now is written so that the environment is against you as much as any NPC adversary is. The rule seems to balance things out just enough for the campaign not to be a frustrating slog while still being challenging. Plus, I’m a relatively inexperienced DM and it seemed like a good buffer between me and accidentally killing a PC (by messing up the balance of combat or something rather than due to bad dice rolls or the PCs doing something chaotic stupid). Character death is still a risk, it’s just not so unbalanced as to be basically inevitable.

[@thunderstarchampion]

My go to house rule is the arrow one: Any (bow welding) player is provided free NM* arrows, and assumed to always have enough either in their pack, or been picked off the ground, so as to never run out. NM arrows sell for nothing. The quiver of infinite arrows grants infinite +1, or infinite of one type of arrows, which still disappears at the normal rate. *Non magic or Mastercraft

[@TVBubbleBee]

If you use an action to take a healing potion you get full healing. If you use a bonus action to take a healing potion you have to roll as normal

[@salimufari]

One of my favorite house rules I heard from Bob the World Builder is the weapon quality adjustment. Low grade is 2x dmg rolls take the lower number. Normal is standard roll & High or Masterwork is 2x dmg rolls take the higher. Simply put the dmg roll at advantage or disadvantage as suites the weapon quality. As for the "Exploding Dice" rule I could see that being just add a d4 for that extra umph.

[@thecthuloser876]

I feel if you're going to add house rules, they should add something to the game. I'm starting an Old School Essentials (a B/X D&D retroclone) campaign soon and I have three house rules; maximum hit points at 1st level (since you're supposed to roll), instead of dying at 0hp, you roll on injury chart (since the players aren't old school and I want to give them a little more leeway, while still making combat highly dangerous) , and a stress/sanity system I created since it's also a horror game.

[@Falruk]

Action for healing word? Thanks for the inspiration!

[@gamegraves]

House rules can definitely be a mixed bag, played with many of them. Love things like secret death saves and the minion rules

[@TankTaur]

I totally agree that people should check how their PCs are affected by sweeping changes made to the game. You don't want to ruin your players' day. However, I've also seen this opinion in many places online and offline that no changes should be made to player options (subclasses, feats etc.) that "step on the toes" of other options - even if those options are not in use at the table! One common example is giving Battle Master Fighter maneuvers to all or most martial classes. "But that would make Battle Master a less compelling option". Well, if there's not a Battle Master at the table right now, it probably wasn't very compelling to begin with! Meanwhile, we're adding a bunch of value to the play experience of the martials classes actually in play. This is how I see it: rules don't have feelings. How much fun your group is having is what matters. And WotC doesn't care, as long as you keep buying their products.

[@Atma_Weapon]

love that ad, pink dice! you deserve to be showed off. dont get me wrong, blue dice deserves it too. but i love pink dice. 😍

[@Bkwrm88]

The math is a little off on how likely someone rolling 2d6 is to benefit from exploding dice compared to 1d8 or 1d12. If they were rolling *1*d6 they'd be twice as likely to benefit from it as someone rolling 1d12 (1 in 6 vs 1 in 12), but with 2d6 the odds improve to about 1 in 3 (11 of the possible 36 combinations involve at least 1 of the dice rolling a 6).

[@simounobrien9096]

Damn is this video timeless :D!!!!! Personally, I think the Infinite Ammo situation is just specific to combat and nothing else so I wouldn't put too much mind into the Raft Building or Spike Traps. I still say it i a huge plus so players do not need to count ammo and even pay for ammo when they can use currency on stuff like Potions, even magical items.

[@byronkooper]

I have a whole document of house rules because 5e is so restrictive and I've been asked so many times about "can I do this..?" and there would be a hard "no you cant" when in the past you could or it just doesn't make sense.

[@kaiiser2190]

On my table, we follow some of the rules of the game but it's very fluid, if the dm or the table don't think it's fair it can't happen, it breaks some rule but is cool enough or funny or fairer we just allow it. As an example...my character literally travels through time...at level 1

[@templarw20]

Laundry list of house rules describes my old 3.5 group. The funny part, most of them matched what Paizo did with Pathfinder. Had a GM once say that advancement was too rapid, so he upped the XP needed for each level, and implemented a training system where you had to pass fairly high ability checks or you lost whatever class features you were supposed to gain that level. Not a happy time, that one…

[@angelapplepie]

A house rule that I like to employ is that only drinking healing potions is a bonus action, while all other potions are actions to drink. And administering a healing potion to another character is an action, not a bonus action.

[@Tessq]

My table has gone through about 3 different house rules for flanking trying to find the right one!

[@shadesofgray9]

Found it yet? Im exploring this for my own table

[@Tessq]

@@shadesofgray9 I think we're using a +2 to attack rolls instead of the traditional advantage. And you have to narratively say what you're doing to actually flank.

[@SneakyNinjaDog]

Exploding dice: If you have 2d6 vs 1d12 it is not just twice as likely that you roll max (because you are rolling 2 dice) it is FOUR times as likely since rolling max on a d12 is 1 in 12 chance while on a d6 it is 1 in 6 (twice as likely and on two dice).

[@shinybugg9156]

Lol "Today, I woke up and chose violence!" :)

[@TheBaca219]

Most houserules I implemented went to become an official thing within a year or so (spirit guardian nerf, customisable race, spell list expansion). Yes, houserules are fine for me.

[@broke_af_games9661]

It would be good fun if you do an edition war with yourself as period specific tropes lol

[@PrecambrianLullaby]

i use a 3X20 RULE (i call it "the rule of three" (but i think i pulled it from a 3.5 book) BASICALLY: 20: only hits, if you role a second time against an ac to confirm THEN you apply critical modifiers 2x20: critical hit now, this seems kinda chump. . . until you get to the third roll. . . 3x20: you just dropped your opponent. (regardless of difference in ac, character level, or remaining hp of the target) if a player roles 2 20s in a row and hen scores a successful ac hit. . . they dead. period. fun for an unexpected "how do you want to do this?" moment. a third 20 isn't necessary, one just has to hit the ac on the third roll and the opponent drops. so, it's really 20-20-confirm. (it's still the "rule of three") it's good for an element of excitement. just keep in mind that the rule swings both ways and the dm will be rolling more frequently than the players will, so. . . yeh. a player COULD drop a great worm at lvl 3. i wouldn't recommend it as the statistical odds are about 8000 to 1 against. but hey, if you're dming like that, i won't fight ya'. i once saw someone roll 14 or 15 d6 and every single one of them came up '3', so. . .

[@Goccvp1]

Finally got around to watching this...great color coordination 🙂

[@valory13]

all ranged players i give a quiver of holding to, it is a common magic item worth little more than a regular quiver in my world and most civilized npc towns and city have them on mass, no one wants to count their arrows, i also add exploding dice to skill checks a natural 20 might not always succeed but giving the players an additional dice makes up for the expectation of a nat 20 to succeed. Also lock picking (if proficient) unless it is a magical lock unless you roll a 1 you can get through the door but the time it takes varies based on number rolled. (no doors stopping my players unless I mean for it to be a stop gap). if a player is knocked unconscious they can pop back up to 1D8 hp if they accept a warlock pact and the next lvl they take is a warlock lvl, this can only be done once if you dont already have warlock levels. out side of a few words in combat I limit speech to a bonus action if it is going to cause an effect on the battle. i add have an equipment slot for a readied potion this potion is a bonus action to consume only 1 potion can fit in this slot. those are the house rules i add and there are a few more here and there that are clarifications on rules and im sure ive also made up dozens on the fly that made sense to the situation that might or might not be in the dmg. but as a rule of thumb i dont add anything to take anything away that will remove power from the players, unless it is gamebreaking -looking at sorlocks-