Homebrew You NEED for Your Next DND Session

[@SmokeADig]

Love the lower level play! I’ve been running a campaign for two and a half years and my players are level 7. I go by milestones, but I use magical items, scrolls, or little homebrew abilities (the Druid can eat a magic mushroom as a bonus action to roll on the Wild Magic table when he casts his next spell) to let them still acquire new tools/toys as mini “level ups” after meaningful encounters/events. Playing at lower levels really helps ground the gameplay and keep it crunchier.

[@ConstructedChaos]

That sounds like a fantastic play group you've got there! Milestone leveling FTW!

[@Tidesofmo]

Love these tips and how you incorporate them into our game!!

[@ConstructedChaos]

Haha thanks! Proof is in the pudding, folks!

[@mattheweagle3580]

I have a homebrew rule where whenever a character falls to 0 HP they gain a level of exhaustion

[@ConstructedChaos]

Ditto!! It's a really good one to have!

[@Grymreefer]

the only change i'd make for death exhaustion , the adrenaline of the fight prevents you from feeling the exhaustion until combat is over , of course you could technically drop dead right after the fight if you dropped 6 times in combat . love the video . ❤️

[@ConstructedChaos]

Ohhh that’s a cool idea to tack on! Thanks for that, Grym!

[@Grymreefer]

@@ConstructedChaos my pleasure brother

[@TheRyanjones]

I do this same thing with downed exhaustion.

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@TheRyanjones you have it go into effect after combat too?

[@TheRyanjones]

Yes @@ConstructedChaos

[@Atmoseeker]

Fantastic ideas here. Love the twist on death saves. Definitely adds more tension!

[@ConstructedChaos]

Thanks, Seb!! With all the 5e power creep that's been put out there since 2014, this feels like a necessity for most tables now!

[@Oddthebard]

Excellent video. I am all for implementing all of these rules

[@ConstructedChaos]

Hehehehe roger that!

[@AlexanderBisant]

This is great, I'm definitely stealing these!

[@ConstructedChaos]

Please do!! Enjoy! :D

[@Belerin26]

My issue with starting at level one is some subclasses are pretty defining and not having them until level 3 messes with the characters story

[@ConstructedChaos]

I can appreciate that outlook but I always say that flavor is free! Wouldn’t it be possible for your players to consider what subclass they might take and flavor their spells and abilities as such?

[@paraschauhan1603]

Death Scaring Throws: The panicked response when a monster rams a downed player, giving them extra fails on their saving throws.

[@ConstructedChaos]

Hahaha "Roll for heart attack"

[@wbbartlett]

As a non-5e RPG player this is quite enlightening. I would argue that in 5e as it's written is there any point whatsoever in rolling dice? The characters are impossible to kill with their multitudes of HP, saves, rests & healing options. Why not just let the players say "Yep, killed that one. Big dragon? He's dead too. Who's next? He's dead...." Would save everyone a lot of time.

[@ConstructedChaos]

I have found it more difficult to adequately challenge experienced play groups without way overstacking combat encounters but these rules have helped a lot.

[@PrimusxPilus]

I let the table pick from levels of difficulty in combat. They elected for: If you take half or more of your current HP in one attack, Constitution saving throw of 10 or half the damage, whichever is higher. On a fail, you fall prone. Every time you hit 0hp, you gain a level of exhaustion. They do called shots, so do monsters. Some wounds will require more magical healing than others (bruise from club vs puncture wound from spear) Critical hits do max damage of a Normal hit and then you roll a normal hit (1d8 +2 would be 1d8 +2+10) this works for players and enemies. Long rests heal 1hp per character lvl per day. Healers are way more valuable in this way.

[@ConstructedChaos]

Wow this sounds absolutely brutal and I love it!! I especially like the idea of slower healing! Might end up adopting something like that!

[@PrimusxPilus]

@@ConstructedChaos it forces less recklessness, keeping hp higher, and still isn't as brutal as the gritty realism setting where a long rest is a week. I think it is a happy medium.

[@Grymreefer]

I was going to make it constitution bonus+1 for HP recovery but since rest is only available in safe areas I'm going to make it level 😀 thanks for the info

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@Grymreefer that’s a great middle ground too! Hmmm I may borrow this idea as well…

[@PrimusxPilus]

@Grymreefer no problem. The good thing is if it's by level, it scales as they grow, and the low con character heals just as much as the high con character.

[@Justinian_of_Darkeport]

Is it bad?!? .... No no no .... well 🤣

[@ConstructedChaos]

Lol in my videos, the wizard never stands a chance!

[@benjaminalexander5778]

Private death saves, death saves not resetting until a long rest is a decent idea, and the exhaustion are all solid. I'm considering a different method tho bc exhaustion is under utilized and being unconsious is boring and takes ppl out of play. So when they fall to 0 they get a lv of exhaustion and then 1 level for each hit they take while at 0 hp but they can still take limited actions with a new condision called dying. when they come back from 0hp they lose that condition and wont gain additional lvls of exhaustion but it keeps them in the fight and raises stakes as exhaustion levels build up.

[@ConstructedChaos]

I like your thinking on this! It reminds me a lot of the dying condition in Pathfinder 2e. If you aren't already familiar, you should take a look at it because I think you'd like it!

[@joshdaymusiced]

This may sound wacky, and feel free to tell me how much you dislike this, but I'm considering having falling unconscious associated with a Will save. Or rather, you can postpone unconsciousness with a Will save. Basically, when you hit zero, you roll a death save and the DM describes how you are exhausted, and feel like you are going to succumb. It might be safer for you to do so. Do you fight it and keep going? The player rolls a Will save. The will save, if succeeded, will allow the player to continue the fight, with some penalties to rolls. This represents the classic scenario of a hero dying on his feet, but powering through anyway. Next turn, another death save, another will save. At any point, the players can decide that their character collapses, as still standing, they are more of a target for enemies. If the character fails his death saves but succeeds his will saves, the DM should describe a dramatic death scene. Same goes if they reach negative max health while still standing. Now, the trade off is that if they remain conscious, they CANNOT stabilize. If they have succeeded three death saves and theoretically stabilized, they will continue to roll more death and Will saves until they fall unconscious, either by Will save or by their own choice. I just feel like this would make a lot of tense, dramatic scenarios, where the character is bleeding out, and knows he's gonna die, but the wall MUST hold, and he MUST protect it until his dying breath. Thoughts? Edit: I changed some things, to make this more of an optional rule, and to balance it a little bit. Now the player CHOOSES whether to fight through as their body screams at them to drop.

[@ConstructedChaos]

I absolutely love this mechanic! We played a one shot in the SAGAS system last month that had a very similar mechanic that made for an extremely exciting combat. I fully support it and I think it could even be something that gets worked in at a DM’s discretion if he knows a player character might be feeling particularly driven in a certain moment.

[@joshdaymusiced]

@@ConstructedChaos For sure! Like, Boromir's death is one of my favorite moments in fantasy. But the tension of that scene isn't the "is he going to die?" but "he IS going to die, but he keeps fighting." In this scenario, his health would have been whittled down by Uruks, and the first arrow would have brought him to 0 hp. He rolls a death save, succeeds, and decides to roll Will, because if he drops, who will protect the hobbits? He continues to fight. Second death save, fail. Second Will save, success. The third arrow, third death save, fail. That's two. Third Will save, also fail. He cannot move anymore. He can only sit, waiting for the final blow. Aragorn keeps the final blow from happening, but while he's fighting, Boromir fails his last death save. It was too late for him to be saved. It makes it a lot more dramatic than "the first arrow brought him down to half health. He could still win this."

[@cancer98boy]

I always start at level 1, things seem much more challenging at the low levels

[@ConstructedChaos]

I find myself missing lower levels any time I get beyond level 10 myself!

[@michaelmuirhead910]

I just had my first PC get dropped from a crit. I knocked out the barbarian with a 4d6+2 from a shadow. (I love those things as a DM) Anyway, my homebrew for death saves is that the player rolls it in secret with me, so the party does not know. I really like some of the add ons here. Yo-yo healing does suck, and it’s never been a part of fantasy lore. Outside of monsters regenerating, etc… I may add the after combat exhaustion as a mechanic in my game, but I need to figure out if I’m going full on with a level every time a player gets KO’d. How many times can Rocky get knocked down before he stays down?? (He had a 20 con score, no doubt)

[@ConstructedChaos]

Thanks for the accolades there!! I like the idea of having the player know too but I think I have trouble facilitating that for our live streams. Either way, thanks for watching and happy adventuring!

[@UltimateMustacheX]

@@ConstructedChaos My DM does them like that too. The rest of the party closes their eyes while the player gives thumbs up/down to the DM each roll.

[@PFCMcNabb]

Time to put the fear of the gods in my players!

[@ConstructedChaos]

Hell yeah!! Let me know how it goes!

[@patoace00]

I don’t like the DM death save,because it leaves the Player with nothing to do in its turn, besides looking at the DM reaction to the roll. My proposed solution is: the DM rolls 1d4 in secret and that’s the number of fails that cause the death of the PC. In his turn, the player rolls his death saves as usual, but now he knows a single fail can mean the end. That’s enough to restore tension at the table

[@ConstructedChaos]

That’s not a bad idea at all but it does leave you open to one slightly unlucky d4 roll. Then your player feels like they were cheated out of their chances and they have nothing to do for the rest of the session 😜 Anyway, I’ve found that employing this homebrew means that players are down for less time on average as well.

[@danielinthewolvesden]

Okay, I like the idea of secret deaths saves, but not carried over. And- do the PCs forgo attacks on monsters still hitting to do one more hit on a downed foe? No, because a downed foe is not trying to kill you. Yeah, IRL getting knocked out isnt easy to recover from- but IRL we dont have magic healing spells either. The gritty rules are just plain bad. Sure, we mostly start @1, maybe 2. So, mostly bad ideas.

[@ConstructedChaos]

I totally respect that opinion and you’re more than welcome to run your games however you’d like! I personally don’t run the gritty rules but I don’t think they’re bad by any stretch. The only bit I’ll really argue for is attacking downed PCs. If your BBEG isn’t bright enough to realize that a healer will pop their allies back up with no problem then they aren’t very bright haha.

[@danielinthewolvesden]

@@ConstructedChaos Yeah, sometimes. But my player attack the foes that are up, doing damage, not the ones lying there, bleeding out. Now yes, once they start to see them being healed, they take a different attitude.

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@danielinthewolvesden you seem to be confused? I’m saying that the DM should consider attacking downed PCs sometimes. I pointed out in the video that it doesn’t always make sense to do so.

[@danielinthewolvesden]

@@ConstructedChaos Oky, sure, especially things like oozes, beasts undead, etc.

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@danielinthewolvesden exactly!

[@danielinthewolvesden]

5e is not "easy mode" Yeah it is hard to die, but the limit on 3 maximum significant magic items, compared to the ton of super powerful gear we had in AD&D and 3e?

[@ConstructedChaos]

Haha I was being a bit exaggeratory I suppose.

[@karatekoala4270]

Just started the video but my homebrew is.... Never mind you literally said what i was about to say🤣 #deathsavereset

[@ConstructedChaos]

Hahaha barely beat ya to the punch!! It’s such a simple adjustment that makes a big difference!

[@karatekoala4270]

@@ConstructedChaos it is! I also have a rule that if you're dropped to 0 the only action you can do is heal or dodge. No movement except 15 to stand up or full movement crawling. Picking up your dropped weapon is an object interaction so choose that or potion.

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@karatekoala4270 you mean while you’re at 0? Or even afterwards?

[@karatekoala4270]

@@ConstructedChaos after you're brought back up with a heal. As former wrestler and fighter like you said, getting rocked is disorienting af

[@ConstructedChaos]

@@karatekoala4270 oh wow!! That’s pretty intense then!