D&D Players, What is the worst homebrew you've ever seen?

[@SnickMonster]

You can tell this was taken from reddit because people don't understand a one sentence question. "What's the worst DND homebrew?" "I had this one that was super fun and all the other players loved it" NOT the question that was asked.

[@royplatt455]

To be fair, you can have homebrew be abysmally unbalanced and fun at the same time.

[@GhostCryProductions]

I’m not a redditor, but I’ve had people ask me if I am because they’re that braindead about basic questions or sentences. What I’m saying that what you said is an insult to Reddit.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

That's not a reddit thing, that's a people thing. I've had conversations with people on Facebook, KZbin, Discord, and in person where someone did not understand a single short sentence and I went "I cannot possibly make this any simpler. What part don't you understand so I can expand on it instead?" 😅 dnd discussions in particular seem to invite a lot of people who will dodge the topic so that they can share their """more important""" topic or idea. Like I remember saying that Tortles seem way less diverse idea-wise compared to other playable species. It's literally always Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Master Oogway, Bowser/Koopa, and MAYBE a Blastoise. Just playing directly as one of those characters. I asked a simple question, does anyone have any Tortle ideas that AREN'T just ripping a character straight from a media property? Hundreds of responses... 2 fit the prompt. All of the rest were people sharing another cartoon or video game turtle that they heavily based the character on.

[@the_multus]

​@@TheMightyBattleSquiddid you just do it?

[@Czarro672]

I once saw a homebrew spell that made it so that the targeted creature took all damage as healing and all healing as damage for 1 minute. Someone else quite aptly described it as "The only homebrew I've seen that I genuinely fail to find any non-busted use for." Oh, and did I mention that I was the person who made it?

[@c.y.651]

Mass heal has a pool of 700 up, distributed however you please amongst targets in a range. Tiamat has (about) 500 health. Ergo, you can kill tiamat in 2 spells. Call that the death hose or something

[@ericb3157]

that reminds me of a classic Flash game, "Sonny" there was an optional superboss enemy, "doctor" something, who had 100,000 health and knew a spell that would heal him for 100,000 damage, and he would cast it whenever his health dropped below 90,000. the ONLY way to beat him was with a spell similar to the one you described.

[@Czarro672]

@ericb3157 Not gonna lie, that game is 99% of the inspiration I had for making the spell.

[@TheTSense]

Back when I did Roleplaying over Mechanic, someone made a vampire with their coffin inside a magic ring. Didn't roleplay, but steamrolled all gameplay with turing to fog and whatever. After a really long time of doing this, they came across a magic gem that activates when heated up. Outside at night in winter, with snow all around, the player decided to "put their hand on it". I told them you are a vampire, you don't have body heat. They asked me if I wanted to be a better DM. They kept repeating that line over and over, no matter what I said. Well I became a better DM, no more Homebrew, no players walking all over me. Kicked them out

[@nomymina5429]

that just sounds like them throwing a tantrum there character has a flaw

[@ShadowDude6488]

Our local 'that guy' tried playing a Yautja (Predator alien race) in a medieval fantasy setting. There was a race stat page and everything. I usually observe homebrew before approving, but that was an automatic deny.

[@shanerasmussen5225]

Were you playing by any chance Palladium fantasy I asked because I have seen a yautja homebrew for the palladium megaversal rule system.

[@ShadowDude6488]

@shanerasmussen5225 No, it was regular D&D 5e.

[@shanerasmussen5225]

@@ShadowDude6488 Yikes, I mean the one I was talking about is at least a minmax friendly system where even in the Fantasy setting the yautja isn't going to be OP (at least if the person who made the homebrew isn't a yautja stan). In 5E though, yeah no thanks.

[@NereidAlbel]

Did he at least stick with the Yautja honor thing of keeping their tech on par with the prey, so it could only use muscle-powered weapons? Or did they try to keep all the tech gear on it, too?

[@shanerasmussen5225]

@@NereidAlbel Nah man, that's the kind of player that doesn't even know the lore and has maybe seen 5 or 6 minutes of predator footage, from one of lesser films, and it's all about "muh cool invisble alien murdah machine" (misspellings intentional).

[@arklaw8306]

A homebrew race of a shapeshifter that could reroll their own stats every day.

[@Dave_Fondale]

This has potential to be good, if you make it more of a curse so that player HAVE to reroll all their stats every day (in the open), you could end up with a barbarian build like a brickhouse one day and the next, a barbarian that can't lift their weapon and will fall over is someone looks at them funny.

[@danielhale1]

Crit fail tables can go to hell. A 1/20 chance of something absurd happening every time I roll? No, just no. This brutally punishes martial classes especially, who roll a lot more in a fight. It punishes anyone engaged in the game and making skill checks, and thus puts a chilling effect on engagement. It completely demolishes the tone of the campaign when this team of supposedly competent adventurers has butterfingers: they constantly drop/throw their weapons, fall over, injure themselves or someone else, etc. We're level 6. Dear god, how does anyone in this game world survive childhood or daily life?! If the GM pulls out a crit fail table against the players' wishes, the players should pull out wacky sound effects on their phones to mock it.

[@NereidAlbel]

A nat 1 just fails a check or misses the attack. That's ALL that needs to happen.

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

The ONLY time I would ever consider using Nat 1s as anything more would be a firearm misfire that would require a chamber clear or something, but even then that's pretty niche and while it can help balance out a weapon like that, is nowhere near a requirement for a 6-second round when rules like Loading and Reload already exist.

[@Joris-l5r]

The „homebrew king“ actually cooked up a monster that sounds really fun! Maybe a bit difficult for a lvl 6 party, but it’s not as stupid as some other stuff on there

[@aydencahoon6557]

Great idea, poor execution

[@Thephilosofear23]

And maybe don't have the dmpc doing something that would harm the party

[@robertheinrich2994]

1:04 I actually like the idea that you advance in the class you happen to use. only problem: you get a bunch of jack of all trades. it would probably require a total rebalance of the class-system to reflect that. first, breaking down classes to special skills, then reorganzing them to reflect that being in the wilderness for a week will even make a squishy wizard more robust and more ranger-like. this whole thing could be done with a skill-tree like in quite some games, but it requires serious rework. idea good, realization hard, and in this case not achieved.

[@Dave_Fondale]

It's easy, just make the DnD equivalent to Path of exiles passive skill tree, any class has the ability to get any of the skills, the only difference is where you start on the skill tree. /s

[@tobiasbayer4866]

I think the problem is that its very "all or nothing". From the way it was was described, you would still get your usual milestone level up all at the same time, but based on what you did the most you would get the level up. Meaning if you did 51% of sneaking and 49% of magic you would get a rogue level, and nothing for wizard. I think it would work way better if you could somehow gain experience for multiple classes simultaneously, but that would obviously require to rework basically the entire system and take orders of magnitude more effort to keep track off. I think this a classic case of "would be cool in a videogame where everything is automated, but in DnD its just tedious".

[@alexkuhn5188]

The Chain Fireball spell should be called “Summon Hell”and be a high level not just for how powerful it is but for how likely it is to cause friendly fire.

[@theodorehunter4765]

Small enough radius and low enough damage with a limit to how many times it could chain, and it would probably be okay.

[@theexecutioner5244]

I've made quite a few homebrew things from items to races for my campaigns. Let me tell you, it's a hilarious power trip. But the primary thing that reigns everyone in is that depending on the homebrew race you chose, there's a monster that is essentially your natural predator that can attack you virtually ANYWHERE. They have to pray i never roll that encounter or they're getting a hell of a beating.

[@hylianarcher4531]

That one with the shotgun in the fantasy setting: is the character named Ash Williams?

[@VoxAstra-qk4jz]

*THIS... IS MY BOOMSTICK!*

[@christopherbravo1813]

I was thinking something more along the lines of *"AMERICA BREATHING FIRST FORM!"*

[@hubertpodgorski7414]

Actually progression based on actions sounds interesting, still would be nice to know it on session 0

[@yoshikoizumi7851]

while it does have some reasoning behind it (can't fight better if you never train with a sword and such) it's also very likely people will play very one-note stereotypical characters just so they never have to fear about accidentally leveling wrong Rogue will always be shady and sneaky-stabbing everything, Barbarian will solve literally everything with STR-checks and Rage like the Hulk, Wizard has to have a spell for every situation etc. the important part about making a system like this work is creating a baseline of what you expect from the class and proper communication between players and DM about intent and reward if I recall correctly there are other TTRPG out there that have you mark whenever you actively use a skill and you can only buy skill increases with Exp for skills you used and stuff like that, so there are options out there you can grab as inspiration

[@theodorehunter4765]

The one about the level 30 mage doesn't sound like homebrew, that just sounds like Epic Level DnD 3.5.

[@pancakemaster4182]

I'm new to D&D so I don't have any idea of a bad Homebrew. (I'm typing this so nobody does the "I'm first" comment)

[@pal1d1nl1ght]

Best practice when it comes to homebrew is don't do it until you fully understand the game. One of the most common things I see new DMs do is nerf Rogue because they see them crit someone for a scary amount of damage, meanwhile the Wizard just ended the entire encounter with one spell.

[@pancakemaster4182]

@pal1d1nl1ght Started playing rarely a year ago, and want to start a little campaign of my own so thanks for the advice.

[@LisaVGG]

@@pancakemaster4182Not related to homebrew, but as a relatively new DM still (two campaigns under my belt) I have some advice. If you can take inspiration from something, don’t hesitate to do so, my first campaign had an area that was heavily inspired by Kamoshida’s Castle from Persona 5. Most players won’t mind if they notice, I know mine didn’t, especially if they’re a fan of whatever you use

[@williamstokes4282]

Balancing homebrew can be tricky even when you know how the game works and very messy if you don't have everyone at the table on board with using or at least trying the homebrew. Sometimes you might make a homebrew weapon, feat, subclass or race that is perfectly balanced mechanically but ends up feeling really off thematically or just is unfun to play, the reverse can also easily happen.

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

​@@williamstokes4282Thematics don't matter with feats. Literally if it's off thematically with a character why even do it

[@ericb3157]

that first one reminds me of a weapon in an old videogame, i think it was called "Dragon Wars". a "gatling bow" that could fire an absurd number of arrows per turn. if you ALSO found the magical quiver with infinite ammo... one of the best weapons in the game. runner up were...i forget the name, spears on lances made from dragon bones of dragon fangs. technically melee weapons, but with a 40 foot range! that "chain fireball" reminds me of a similar story, BUT, when all the enemies died, the spell started targeting party members... TPK the FIRST time he used it!

[@darkphoenix539]

Me and my then girlfriend once played with ... strange group, 80% of theme were literal incarnation of horny bard meme (both males and females), we assumed that it was stress coping mechanism. Anyway, one of players, Warlock, had home brew item “Deck of many Sausages”, It was basically off brand version of Deck of many things but after pulling a card depicting certain race ranging from goblin to equivalent of Bahamut, a flying sausage would appear and … make a mess, than dissapeared into thin air. Warlock once tortured pair of important NPCs by throwing them into deep hole and giving them this deck as only way to escape (by filling hole untill they could get out). After that we left. It was first and last session we played with this group.

[@Dormaze]

One of the most unbalanced homebrew I've seen a DM allow was a "red mage" from final fantasy. At level 1 it attacked once with a weapon, then could cast a cantrip as a free action as part of the first attack, then as a bonus action could cast another cantrip, and it did this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus + intelligence modifier before needing a short rest, and used intelligence for melee attack rolls. Also it could learn 9th level magic and wear upto medium armour + shields. Same DM who allowed this decided to ban an ability someone else had which was to store one item weighing less than 5 pounds in a scroll, costing 50GP to do so, because he thought it'd be overpowered.

[@GhostCryProductions]

Guns allowed but require DEX Saves while bows do not. Re: the target can tell when you’re about to shoot them and will just jump out of the way of the bullet.

[@AdrenalineandEpiphany]

so i made a comical homebrew item that seemed like it was the worst homebrew item you can have in a serious game...........but it turned out to be a game changer, omg we found sooo many great uses for it. it was called the Sooey Sniffer, a wooden whistle gifted by a fey, that did not require attunement, and when blown would summon a mundane wild pig immediately at your feet who's sole interest is to stick its nose as far between your butt crack as possible, as it takes the biggest sniffs as it can, for 1 minute. it is friendly to you but does not listen to commands, it ignores any danger of its surroundings even at the detriment of its own life as long as it gets to enjoy its task. after 1 minute, the wild pig remembers its wild nature and slows walks off back into the nearest wilderness, after which, if provoked will try to run. each person can only blow this whistle once per day. using this whistle while a pig is already summoned by another user, summons a different wild pig for its task towards the new user.

[@laziadwobbit5331]

9:02 Oof, they were instakilled just like Achilles!

[@burgerking3763]

I use to homebrew items or spells whenever someone rolled a d20. Our barbarian rolled a 1 on the previous turn and the roll for the d100 chance chart said his halberd broke. His next turn was a nat20 on throwing the broken shaft at the enemy. What did my homebrew rule mean for this then? The shaft spun so quickly that it basically turned into a sawblade and I let him pick if he would rather it do 2d12 or 4d6 damage (with cooldown of course. Once per short rest).

[@williamstokes4282]

Comparing the Unearthed Arcana subclasses that never got officially published to most of the ones that did makes for good case studies into how to design homebrew. My favorite example is the Phoenix Sorcerer which had a great theme and features that matched really well with the Phoenix theme but didn't suit a Sorcerer with how one of it's main features incentivizes the Sorcerer to be up close with the enemy to be of any use and makes you a threat to your party if you need to use it while close to them. It also suffers from a lot of the features being once per long rest which didn't line up with where the Sorcerer was going design wise.

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

I would assume similar issues plagued Sharpshooter and Brawler fighter as well. Sharpshooter got a buncha passive boons to using ranged attacks but nothing that really helped it stand out, and brawler seemed more like an incentive test for Weapon Mastery and I'm pretty sure had most of it's stuff consolidated into a fighting style in the 2024 book.

[@MHWorldManWithFish]

I'll admit one of my own monsters was pretty bad. It was a corrupted simulacrum of a dragon created by a powerful hag. The monster was supposed to have 2 phases: the initial "normal" phase and the "decaying" nuclear phase. The first phase had excessive healing that could only be slowed by DPS checks, but the monster itself could also be outhealed. The issue was the second phase. When the dragon simulacrum went nuclear, its healing turned into a damage boost instead, which again, needed to be mitigated by a DPS check. My players, at this point, had already spent everything on the first phase, including their Cleric's spell slots. The battle ended with most of the party bleeding out on the floor and the Ranger only narrowly outlasting the monster. If I were to run it again, I'd probably make nuclear mode trigger earlier and decrease its damage boost, so my players actually have resources during phase 2.

[@barbscale]

1:30 what if you used this as an "heres an extra level in a DM determined class, but you still earn exp and choose which class those level ups give you?" Sure, might level up faater, but it gives players extra tools to use they otherwise might not have even considered at first.

[@gbpakgirl26]

I was new to D&D and it was my first time using my own homebrew. Session wasn’t planned, I saw a VC in a Discord server and they let me in because that was the idea behind it. Homebrew was Paladin Subclass that dealt 4d8 damage with usage of Smite charge at level 3. We immediately nerfed that to 2d6.

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

Can't paladins already smite for 4d8 damage using a level 3 spell? Like sure high level but smites are great when dealing with undead and fiends so a 4d8 is just against fiends with a level 2 spell. Overall would've denied too cause it's already in the game.

[@gbpakgirl26]

@ Yes, maybe I was mistaken. All I know is that it did too much damage and we needed it.

[@TheT7770ify]

I like to homebrew as a DM even though I'm still pretty new to DM'ing. For my first camping I introduced an item that would play a central role that was a sword that could swallow souls and described it to someone using arcane eye as a void in the surrounding background of magical energies like it was hungry and swallowing magic around it. The big twist if they started using this sword was for everyone it killed it would get a +1 to its damage stacking forever, this was to introduce a level of temptation to the players. Cut to a few sessions later when they're about to be hit with a nasty spell and one of them asks "Hey can I use the sword to block it? You said it absorbs magic" I said yes if they rolled a skill check to catch it, they succeeded and I had to tell them that the sword now did 2d6+42 damage. After they assumed the sword was evil (it kind of was) and refused to use it

[@Balancer07839]

Not complete homebrew, but I play a kobold sorcerer/ Battle Smith artificer. I asked my DM if I could build my Steel Defender so I could get inside and pilot it manually (at least for a time). The campaign is set in the 1930s era so there are guns and stuff and I might be able to outfit it with guns. What do you all think? Too much?

[@floydprice4164]

Reskinning magic items that made no sense at all. Turning robe the archmagi into a little ring.

[@VoxAstra-qk4jz]

3:28 Characters don't need to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, etc. unless doing so will further the plot or develop character. Thats a basic writing pacing rule. Characters sit down and share a meal? We better learn something or that time is just wasted. John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction goes to the bathroom so that they can get the jump on the diner robbers. You only need to show a character in bed if they can't sleep for some reason. This GM just wanted to enforce "realism" at the player's expense.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

10:27 additionally, the RAW say you shouldn't even be rolling for mundane tasks. There's no real chance of failure, it adds nothing to the story, and you're playing a character who is a "protagonist." Expanding on that last point, by level 1, your character has already gotten to the point where they eclipse commoners to a crazy degree. The way so many DMs infantilize characters high enough level to have a subclass is goofy. Some DMs even seem to get offended at the thought of your character doing any adventuring before they joined the party. Like I get being realistic, no slain dragons or gods. But low level bandits or the like? Why not???

[@jettblade]

I honestly like critical success and critical failure homebrew but never have seen them done well. Most of the time DM/GMs will just have you completely fail at the task even though you'd easily pass without rolling or let you do something impossible if you happen to crit. I do feel that if you roll there is a chance for failure no matter how skilled you are but you should also have the option to take a passive check without rolling so you don't risk failure. Also failing a check doesn't mean the task is done wrong it just means something interesting would happen or a complication pops up. There is a rule in DnD 5E about using passive stats for every skill and that needs to be used more.

[@megatronjenkins2473]

(feeds the homebrew to the almighty Algorithmo of DOOOOOM!!!!!)

[@celestevalteir764]

It was simple, really. Uncapped stats. Now, the soft cap (20) still existed, but if you had something to raise beyond that, you could do so infinitely. Now, imagine my face when I have a mythal and a Tome of Leadership and Influence and a Manual of Bodily Health as a Hexadin with a Mask of the Dragon Queen at level 20. Already busted, didn't help any! Same campaign had a homebrew race that could enter a divine form as a bonus action, doubling outgoing damage and health, and then doubling stats (which doubled them again), which was "balanced" by dropping them to 0 and exhausting them upon ending it. Think it could only be chosen to end or when unconscious. Introduced Domain Expansions that had broken features, but originally balanced by the fact it scaled investments into it on level, so it was finite. The DM decided to scale them off an infinitely scaling stat that was easier to build than normal stats, though not easier than a rapidly regenerating Manual/Tome. There was more, but I can't remember it. Man I loved that campaign.

[@NINJAfries07]

0:09 Why, of all people, would the Barbarian take this weapon? Was there nobody in the party that could make better use of it with a proper DEX focus? Then again, with a flat +12 to hit, I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much if the user has any points in dexterity. Still a weird choice though…

[@shaden489]

allot of good examples here on when its ok to just stop playing cause it aint worth it

[@pizzaemperor3553]

So I'm usually the homebrew merchant of my tables and I'm very picky with what I use as both player and DM, and as a result I haven't had to deal with much bad homebrew. That being said, I despise fumble tables and advantage flanking. The former just does nothing but serve to make the competent, badass adventurers look like bumbling morons, and the latter just erodes so much tactical dynamics and interesting synergies and makes GWM even better than it already is. One suggestion for the next video, can we get one talking about good homebrew? I see so many genuinely talented creators who have put more effort, creativity, and thought into their content than WotC has in the last few years and all their work is just lumped in with the garbage seen in this video for no good reason. Let's get some positivity and talk about some good stuff

[@chipkolat4055]

played a 5e on roll 20 called ride or die dm claim its a free to play game that follows 5e roll book play 4 session with this dm in that 4 sessions some of the things i saw were the following 1: the dm was not following 5e at all and had some home made rule set that you the player were not even allowed to see in less you payed him money this also was pay for the right to roll for exp and to lvl up , 2 : dm would only give you advantages or allow your attacks to hit if you again payed him money and the dm would not roll in roll 20 even if you asked , 3: made dice roll so hard that there was no way to pass exciple rolled a nat 20 in the 1st session had to make this forced roll for free rooms at the inn dm said i failed the check even tho he had said that the check needed a 19 to pass then deside it was an oppossed roll , 4: the session that made everyone quite was when we were sent into the forest to hunt down a manticore party had 2 lvl 3 3lvl 3 and 5 lvl 1 party is hit by a fire ball kill half the party out right then the dm tell use that magic is illegal's in the so none of are healers are allowed to heal under pain of death if the guard find out. PCs all agreed no one would say anything and we all still used are magic by the end of the fight party had landed 567 damage on this lvl 3 manticore and its lvl 5 caster when the party returned to town we were arrested for useing magic the guards of the town said they had proof of us using magic even tho no one saw us use magic dm followed the statement that if we payed 5$ to him in RL he would let are characters live shocker the party chose death. party got the last laigh tho as we reported him to roll 20 and his fake free homebrew pay to play game was shut down and he was band from rule 20 from what i under stand he has done this to many other players before and keeps makeing new accounts on roll 20 to play his pay to win home brew game

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

Sorry you went through that. Sounds like scamming with extra steps.

[@chipkolat4055]

@@gratuitouslurking8610 it was roll 20 banned the guy 4 time that i know of i keep finding his games when im looking for free 5e game on roll 20 what he does now is make a fake account then link players to a private game on another severer so roll 20 admins cant find his games

[@chipkolat4055]

@@gratuitouslurking8610 worst part is i keep runing into the dm on roll 20 when looking for free games to join. what he does now is uses a fake name to make a fake game on roll 20 then link you to a private sever game so roll 20 admin dont shut him down.

[@Enjinercraft]

10:30 thank you for agreeing with me

[@koreanbbq2376]

Wait the fantasy flashlight seems cool how is that fhat worst homebrew unless you all already have darkvision

[@corsaircarl9582]

I really don't know why people want to 'win' D&D, the power fantasy would wear off and I'd be bored...

[@VoxAstra-qk4jz]

13:58 There isn't a problem, because an ASI is a lot weaker than Elemental Adept. How often do you miss an attack by just 1? Compare that to ignoring one of the most common resistances in the game. Sure weakness to fire damage is a bit harsh, but without some downside it would just be a free strong feat for just that character.

[@jasondahfolf4325]

Yeah, they were complaining about a perfectly reasonable item. Regarding magic item power budget, it’s around a cursed rare item.

[@SerathDarklands]

Chain Power Word Kill.

[@c00KieDuderoo]

wasnt the one with the "merit" based character progression mentioned in another video befor? who curates what ends up in those videos, can I just spam the subreddit and have my one-hit-wonder of a story featured over and over?

[@thelegogamer5000]

Those are tarrabel

[@majinsole8554]

~_~

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

8:59 once again redditors can't read the title of the post and make something completely unrelated.

[@RaeConradad]

When you realize that cats can do anything and still look cooler than you💖