What's the Most Unbalanced Homebrew Rule a DM Threw at You?

[@NINJAfries07]

A friend of mine once played in a game where the GM said they were playing in a “low magic setting.” What he meant by this was that nobody could play as any full caster classes. The first encounter they came across, as a level three party of four, was a hoard of 15 kobolds who all had access to at least third level spells, and the party was quickly reduced to ash by a rain of Fireballs. There was no second session.

[@SilvanianPirateKing]

I did the same thing to my cowboy campaign but actually made it fair. That's why everyone has a gun and magic users aren't too common.

[@marvin25310]

Ah yes, the monk attacks too many times. Let me guess, the warlock does too much damage and the barbarian resists too much damage types as well ?

[@flazzorb]

_"Sneak attack is op, I'm removing it."_

[@tehrulefoo]

It's a good thing he nerfed the monk before it got out of control. They're notoriously overpowered in 5e. Can you imagine? Getting to throw three punches in a single turn? Total game-breaker. Should have just played a fireball-tossing wizard instead.

[@FayeRantTheStrong]

Warlock is on the lower side of damage dealing though, eldritch blast is used as a base just because how simple it is to calculate not because it deals good damage.

[@williambibee2240]

@@FayeRantTheStrongyes that is the point of the sarcasm.

[@lucasky1394]

@@flazzorbyeah my dm wanted to remove sneak attack because the ranger and fighter weren’t doing as much damage… didn’t notice they also weren’t being hurt as much as the rogues either

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

0:52 idk if it's a thing in older editions but I had an "old school" DM also try the "grapple = restrained" thing but we successfully managed to convince him that it was not only not how that works but that it also shouldn't be homebrewed to be the case because if he thought his big fights ended too early already there was NO WAY he was going to like it once my beefy character started restraining all of his boss monsters. He thought that was reasonable enough and we kept to the RAW on this.

[@dugbyfly]

"A round of combat is 15 seconds, because 6 seconds is unrealistic." Let all the implications sink in. Take your time.

[@Ragnarok222R]

I had a DM decide that each round was a minute. A lot of spells became worthless. I pointed out that it was supposed to be 6 seconds, but he said he wanted to continue with using a minute for the rest of the session, we'd talk next time and re-think it to see how it worked out. Next session, he chewed me out for saying each round was a minute, when obviously it was only 6 seconds, so 10 rounds was a minute. How dare I disadvantage the spell casters like that! (I was the only one playing a pure spell caster)

[@DylanChu-o9n]

​@@Ragnarok222R damn. Must be bad for you

[@kylethomas9130]

One of my DM, bless her heart, allowed us to combine spells effects with eachother. Sounds fun right? It is, but it broke several of her encounters. A few times the Wizard combines Cloud of Daggers with Wall of Force on enemies too large to avoid the daggers. My Bard mixed Hex with Fog Cloud on a Beholder, normally it would have just left the fog (and since Conjuration makes the fog real, it couldn't dispel it) but Hex makes a the spell stick to its target wherever they go. We allowed the DM to roll for randomly shooting beams, since a Beholder's entire kit needs visibility to do anything substantial.

[@mrblooper1994]

"we allowed the DM" is such a wild sentence lol

[@jonathanmarks3112]

@@mrblooper1994It SHOULD be the other way around, but clearly that DM was outsmarted.

[@mrblooper1994]

@@jonathanmarks3112 it sounds like an inexperienced DM, we've all been there honestly. But what's an inexperienced DM doing with a beholder tho? 🤔

[@kylethomas9130]

@@mrblooper1994 we were lvl 10 + in 5e, there were also several Rust Monsters the Beholder had lured into the room with us. I also remember a few "improvisations" with the rusting mechanic. When I saw our Fighter's magic heirloom of a sword get permanently debuffed, I didn't feel bad initially for splitting the encounter in two, rather than having to deal with both at the same time.

[@mrblooper1994]

@@kylethomas9130 I'm sure the game was fun, and that does sound very cool. I'm just saying that what you described sounds like how a new DM would handle things. How new was your DM at the time?

[@altermirror4063]

First time playing 5e for the whole group, even DM, then everyone except me went for fantasy races like Elves, Lizardmen, etc. and I went Variant Human. DM looked at it and said "VHumans don't get much so you'll get a SECOND feat at lv3".

[@EdKolis]

That last one, oof. It's actually advantageous to go last, because then you have the last word in terms of dodging attacks and can never be hit. Rerolling initiative every round is a blessing in disguise.

[@timtarbet4594]

I have one I did myself. In my teens I saw Van Helsing, which made me want to do a campaign that centered around lycanthropy, so I allowed my players to choose whatever type of lycanthrope they wanted. I figured it would be fine, and I’d just be able to throw tougher monsters at them. I was not correct.

[@BarrakDraconis]

These were all the same DM: 1. Another party member attacks me for no reason. I retaliate, and suddenly that party member is allowed to roll a Reflex save to dodge out of the way. We were level 1. That wasn't an ability. 2. "This magical poison inflicts sleep and deep dreams." -- I'm an elf, I'm immune to magic sleep. -- "Uh, I mean, it induces unconsciousness and causes hallucinations." 3. He homebrewed a super-barbarian with tripled rage bonuses. The alleged "drawback" was that this barbarian couldn't rage unless he actually tasted blood. Round 1, the barbarian bites the inside of his own cheek. 4. Redefined "threaten" for the purpose of feinting in combat. Wasn't aware "a creature you threaten" had to be within the threat range of your weapon. Thought he could legally "threaten" and therefore feint against an opponent by making growling noises from forty feet away. 5. Redefined the charging rules. Allowed eight spearmen to charge one player in the same round, from the same direction, with weapons that dealt double damage when charging. Wasn't aware "the nearest space from which the charging creature could make an attack" DOESN'T MOVE to the next-best space if that square is occupied. Charge attacks in 3.5 were extremely specific. 6. Declared that a party member was a "hostile character" for the purposes of a Nine Swords stance that allowed him to heal allies for 1 point of damage whenever he attacked a hostile character, then proceeded to bitchslap the "hostile" party member about forty times to full-heal the party. Or tried to. After the third slap, party member actually became hostile and his character did not survive. 7. As a player, regularly built characters intended to fight the rest of the party and win, because "we always turned on him eventually", completely ignoring that he always betrayed us. 8. Generally guilty of deliberate mis-reads of the rules. Is the reason I demand book citations anytime something doesn't pass the sniff test.

[@Cinos2170]

My DM's house rules were max HP, reroll 1s for stat rolls, a free 18, and no stat below 10. Most of us were beginners anyway and he definitely upped the combat difficulty to match. It was honestly really cool

[@themudkipninja5772]

First time playing in my group. Everyone was a first time player; DM wws a first time DM. He let us do ANYTHING as a reaction. One player really liked elaborately describing how he steamrolled fights by dodging all damage, but it made a lot of encounters really redundant once I got telekinesis. This was about a year ago; we learned the correct rules about reacting, lol.

[@tennagon3822]

One I was given and actually used for a while: you can exchange your full movement (meaning you do not move at all) for an additional action. It was bad.

[@Sdogofdoom]

There are some fun features that use something like that. Iirc in 2024 you can drop movement to get some bonus on firing a cross bow. Wouldn't turn down a homebrew for spellcasters that said if you sacrifice movement you can steady your spell, getting advantage or increasing the save DC or something.

[@adromea5628]

I had a game like that too! combat tended to be 'the spellcasters blitzed the one big enemy while the melees try to get close enough to do something' though we were 12 at the time and barely understood how the game worked so shit like that was bound to happen

[@ryanfladung8490]

Pathfinder has something similar. If you don’t move you get a full attack action where you get to use all your attacks available. You can also use a full attack if you only 5ft step

[@TheUnspeakeable]

During your turn? Because that would mean magic-users could cast 2 spells!

[@Sdogofdoom]

@TheUnspeakeable casters in 5e cannot cast a second spell using a spell slot in a turn. They could go spell and a cantrip though, or if there are any features that give a spell as an action

[@darkphoenix539]

ANY Nat 20 during combat gives extra round in combat, AFTER you finish your round, and Nat 20 stacked so f.e. rolling 2 Nat 20 will give you 2 rounds. This applied to both PC and NPC, so if anyone had multiple attacks there was a chance to just „Flash away” whole fight. We had So many TPK with that rule ...

[@darkwarrior03352]

There was a time recently where I was playing a fiend warlock, and we had just entered the lair of this evil witch/necromancer type mage that we had to bring back to town dead or alive to face punishment for Finger of Death-ing 200 townspeople for her undead army! And part of the way in, I discovered the witch's 200 zombies in a 30 by 30-foot sacrifice pit - I cast a single Fireball into the pit, blowing all 200 zombies to a crisp instantly, and gaining 2000 temporary HP!!! Let's just say I could afford to be a bit more reckless when we did finally confront the witch. We have since found out that that was wrong, and Dark One's Blessing can only give you temporary HP one time - but it was still hilarious, and my DM has since learnt a lesson to pay closer attention to what his players' abilities are before designing the layout of a dungeon. LMAO

[@scribblerstudios9895]

I’d say a lesson well learned all around. And a good story to joke about

[@mtesar8379]

so when one character dies the other players can take one thing from their inventory and transmute it to something similar, a player died with a normal deck of cards on them, never do this

[@BluStreak]

OH NO!

[@threydan]

that is pretty funny, but what was the logic on that? Did the player's soul go into the object or something?

[@jonathanmarks3112]

@@BluStreakAre you thinking what I’m thinking (Deck of Many Things)?

[@BluStreak]

@@jonathanmarks3112 that’s exactly what I’m thinking

[@diorkster]

I have two from the same DM. 1) Any class can use a cantrip as a bonus action, doesn’t matter if you cast a spell or cantrip as an action. 2) If you had the haste spell affect you can use any action you wanted and also if you used hasted attack action you just get to use extra attack instead of just the one you use as stated in the spell

[@p2jnyoom]

DM floated an idea that players can attack more by making their rolls fast (essentially, you can take additional turns so long as you do so in a 3 minute window; this was meant to combat people taking extremely long turns). I quickly shut down that idea, because I, the fastest player at yhe table (when it comes to the resolution of my turn), proceeded to show that I can resolve my turn in about half minute, and thus get 5 whole turns in the time others would take to do one. And lemme tell you, a monk doing 15 attacks and moving 200 feet per round makes them quite strong.

[@geoffreyperrin4347]

I love to reroll initiative every round, but in my opinion it only works if you have a tool that automates it for you. If you don't, don't do it

[@penguinmaster7]

a combination of a rule and an item. I was given a hand crossbow that mounted o my wrist. This crossbow could be disconnected and wielded as a light crossbow, then put back on the mount in the same turn. it also came with a built-in hookshot that allowed for free movement at any point, could grapple small enemies, and retrieve items, all with a range of 50 feet. I could also grapple onto a flying enemy and stay attached to them via acrobatics checks. on top of this, the DM ruled that any action whatsoever would proc Crossbow Expert's bonus action attack. two crossbow shots, stabbing with a rapier then using the crossbow, drinking a potion then taking a shot, even getting to shoot after a dash. this crossbow was straight-up broken.

[@tehrulefoo]

The typical critical hit/miss tables that give you a chance to insta-kill your opponent or yourself if you roll a 20 or a 1.

[@Ultrox007]

As the DM in a 3.5e game: I allowed the bard to roll grapple, climb, then performance, letting him get an extra attack action for each he succeeded - at the risk of losing his turn if he failed this pushing of luck, and testing tumble against fall damage. The bard character was being swiftly outpaced by the rest of the party and had little else to do, and with the player and I having both recently finished playing Metal Gear Rising, I decided to throw him a bone so he didn't feel useless. Thankfully I had the foresight to say "only due to the size and environment of the foe, this won't be a regular thing" then made sure the next magic item then found was bard-related.

[@philipweber9545]

Back when we barely knew how to play (as we call those days, "junkyard dnd" or "0.5e"), instead of getting a hit die worth of hp every level and all the class features, you instead had to PICK a single feature on that level, you get 1hp per level, and also an ASI every level. Things were... dumb back then. Also ac worked in a weird way, dont remember exactly how but it was but sometimes you could miss but deal damage anyway, just arbitrarily less. And yes, we have since learned how the game is actually played.

[@EdKolis]

Reminds me of the DM who thought that THAC0 wasn't just a to hit modifier but instead an alternate way of rolling to hit when the target's AC is too low to be hit by a normal attack roll . Was he really that crazy or did I totally misunderstand him?

[@thomasschafer5939]

09:40 I think that DM just played alot of Armello before starting that campaign^^

[@lulospawn]

You had a number of reactions equal to your dex modifier per round. What has two thumbs and can drop shield, absorb elements and counterspell in the same turn? This wiz.

[@CyclopsDragon]

All spells require a d20 roll, not just ones that are spell attacks. If you roll a nat 1, it fails. Going off of that, I once rolled a nat 20 on a saving throw against a spell, and the DM said, "Well, he rolled a nat 20 on his roll, so I think you should do the save again." It was... very weird.

[@gerstein03]

That's the stupidest shit I have ever heard

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

that sounds like adversarial GMing.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

8:50 who the hell takes 2 turns in an 8 hour combat and goes "eh... I'll give them a third chance to win me over on this group." I had a game where I got 1 turn in 4 hours and I mentally checked out like an hour and a half in. I simply kept the clock going while I scrolled through the internet just to see how long they could go before coming back to my turn. I still listened to the session just so I was sure they weren't the ones waiting on me, rather than the other way around.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

2:49 definitely been there as well. It was a different DM though. Traps, mimics, cursed items, you name it. We started pulling out ALL of the tricks to try and avoid his ludicrously deadly/character-ruining antics. Poke it from afar, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic (if something came up), shoot it with a small magic attack because some mimics ignored physical provocation, Augury to ask the divine if it's a good idea to proceed along this path or open that chest over there, Detect Evil and Good, Identify, sending out the plasmoid's pseudopod to test the waters, Meld into Stone or Gaseous Form to avoid the spot all together, etc. Even then, we triggered at least 2 a session because he'd willingly change established homebrew rules of his for this setting or ignore spell effects to get a desired result. Like magic items stopped being able to be picked up by detect magic and nothing could be learned about them from identify. Augury results started saying something would have good results or neutral results because "who really knows if this is going to be a good or bad thing. Maybe you'll roll all 20s!" There were more but yeah you get the idea.

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

that sounds like adversarial GMing.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

Oh it was for sure. I wanted to give the "tomb of horrors" style of game, where everything is trying to kill you, a try but this was too much salt for my taste. Deadly and even misleading traps? Fine. Lying as the dm to make a player fail anyway? Not fine. I did have a convo with said DM about it so he cut it out enough for us to finish the campaign properly. I can only think of one instance he did something similar afterwards but since his "twist" on my wish spell could work with a bit of tweaking I didn't hold it against him.

[@Schmeethe88]

We were made to use a new critical injuries rule. How did it work? Exhaustion is a thing of the past! Anything that would previously cause exhaustion now causes injuries. An injury gives a stacking, cumulative -3 penalty, to everything. Checks, saves, attacks, everything that is rolled with a d20. At 4 stacks of injury, you die. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Furthermore, you also gain an injury under these conditions: You roll a nat 1 on a check or save. Roll a 1 trying to pick a lock? Injury. Roll a nat 1 when making a history check to recall someone's name? Injury. Crit fail that dex save versus fireball? You guessed it, injury. Or, when an enemy critically hits YOU. Take a crit to the face? Injuries! Hooray! You also gain an injury any time a source of incoming damage equals or exceeds half your total max HP. This can mean that you gain two injuries at once, either from a nat 1 on a save against high damage, or by getting critically hit for high damage. What makes injuries even more fun? They don't go away without treatment! No medicine checks, spells, or taking a rest at camp will make these go away. In order to heal injuries, you need trained medical attention, which costs a full 24 hours of treatment in a major city and 100gp per level of injury. 3 injuries? 3 days and 300gp. Add to that short rests are 8 hrs, and long rests are 24 hours in a city with lodgings...

[@Garnet508]

Funny thing that happened in my party’s most recent session. After a fight with some bandits in a basement to a lighthouse we found a human curled up in a room to the side. Our gnome found him and after another member of our party asked them if they wanted to come with them and the man said no. Our gnome than proceeded to hit him with a brasher because she was pissed off about a painting in that same room. She rolled a nat 20. This gnome with ZERO strength hit this person with enough force to make the man bleed. After a bit the man decided to tackle our gnome because of that. The gnome used a lighting spell killing him. than me, my good mariner gunslinger started to question his choice about joining the party after seeing the crazy cultists body. Later on, while searching the rest of the rooms she then proceeded to threaten me a to take a scroll that I found in the kitchen

[@marhteseval5340]

We started a Multiverse Homebrew Pen & Paper. Our DM wanted to make this P&P very realistic, so he put the following things into play. 1. Mental health: Every character has this and depending on the characteristics of a character, the character has to make a damage roll for this health, for example: "If 3 people see their house burning down, they have to roll for mental health, depending on the severity The greater the damage, but if one of the 3 is a pyromaniac, he gains that as mental health because pyromaniacs think that's great." If the character has taken a certain amount of damage, he needs care or even a counselor to clear his head again, otherwise he will go crazy and be a danger to the allies. The 2nd rule was because in a multiverse it makes no sense to compare the damage of a fantasy iron sword with that of a lightsaber, the following damage model was created: "1d6 is rolled and the higher the number, the more your character will be wounded" Example: "The opponent says he's going to shoot you specifically in the head and he makes a 6 with the 1d6 heatshot, you're dead, the only thing you can do is dodge or Parrying doesn't work by by. On a 1, it just brushes you lightly." Due to the rule, we almost lost the first player character because one of us was quartered by 4 wolves. Luckily we have a crazy vampire doctor and a strange Pacter monster, who is also a doctor, on the team who were just able to save the character.

[@CanadianYellow]

Dynamic Initiative - initiative that is rerolled at the start of every round/at the top of every round - is an optional rule presented in the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide and is not necessarily homebrew but something that Dungeon Master may have read and figured they had wanted to try/experiment with.

[@beaveredge]

Rolled stats for character creation for 3.5. 4d6 drop lowest... UNLESS you roll max then you get to keep the 24 stat. Including the dmpc who did it twice :/

[@tehrulefoo]

I imagine he didn't roll those dice in front of the rest of the party.

[@beaveredge]

@tehrulefoo yeah hard telling. Hahaha

[@DarkRabbit-ck2ur]

My first ever DM had the players and I play as younger characters as an origin story arch until our characters matured into full fledged adventures. The problem with this was that the stats we rolled had been halved. I remember having a 20 in one of my stats and it getting cut to 10 until my character came of age. This made fighting rats in a innkeeper's cellar difficult to say the least. They later realized cutting the player's stats in half was a bad idea and later revered it. This would be one of several gripes I would have with that campaign.

[@megatronjenkins2473]

(rolls a nat 20, throws the unbalanced homegrown into the almighty Algorithmo of DOOOOOM!!!!!)

[@SharlaBlades]

Was in a campaign where the DM gave us advantage on all attacks and a +2 to dexterity and strength for the first five rounds of combat. Needless to say, no single encounter went beyond that number of rounds. Along with skipping damage rolls on stealth attacks, and several other VERY broken things.

[@zachm5485]

The campaign I’m playing at my LGS doesn’t use money, instead having the players craft and upgrade gear using loot acquired in the sessions. This crafting system isn’t bad, and one of the benefits that it allows the players make their own magic items by stacking buffs based on the loot (for example, the bone of a fire breathing dino instead of a normal dino can give a weapon fire damage even if you weren’t making a fire weapon) This caused problems when one player managed to stack buffs until he was able to do 250 collective damage in a single turn

[@lordroyalnightmare]

I was in game where the DM had homebrewed the entire system. It was based in DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E, so he had a decent base, but it still went crazy. Some examples: 1) I received a magic dagger early on. The DM rolled to determine threat range (in 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E, certain weapons would have a threat range of 19-20 or 18-20, meaning you could crit if you rolled in that range). The DM rolled for my dagger and gave it a threat range of 11-20, meaning it had a 50% chance to crit. You had to roll to confirm a crit, but it was still an auto hit. 2) We all had solo sessions were our characters each got some kind of follower/companion and were granted a wish by a demon, who took something from us in exchange. My character was obsessed with knowledge, so I wished for infinite knowledge. This resulted in my knowledge skill (yes, it was one skill in his system) becoming some absurd number like 1000, and in exchange I no longer had a strength score. That's not even the crazy part. Once the whole party is back together, it turns out one players companion is a LICH. The DM decides I shouldnt know more than the Lich, so he gives the Lich an even higher knowledge skill, like 3000. Completely invalidated the thing I lost an entire abilty score over. 3) We were presented with 2 levers in the BBEG's lair. One would stop his plans, one would start them up. I asked to roll knowledge to know which we should pull. I got a nat 20, on top of my ridiculous knowledge bonus. He told me which one to pull. We pulled it, and it was the wrong one because I "wasnt specific" when asking which lever to pull. 4) He completely re-made the system, switching from a D20 system to a D10 system. At this point several people had left, and new players joined. They made decent characters for the new system. I and the 2 other players from the original system got mixed results. A power you chose doesn't work in the new system? It's just gone, not replaced unless the DM felt like it. My character was built mostly of abilities that did nothing in the new system, so I had very little to work with

[@chascona9393]

I give my players max HP, and I also give them tons of magic items and extra abilities at higher levels. Just means I get to use higher CR creatures against them and homebrew overpowered monsters that they can fight. Seeing the big numbers flying around is fun when you know how to balance it lol. My players are also incredibly experienced and skilled. At level 2 I sent a Hill Giant with 24 thugs and bandits to raid a village and the party got the 10 guards to help them. They managed to save the town without any casualties on their side.

[@jpd9806]

Had a DM set a level 9 fireball trap on a chest for our level 2 party. Told us we had to go investigate this random house, empty house with a chest in one room. Otherwise normal house. Nothing else to be found. Full TPK for touching the chest

[@hansmuller8762]

I once had a dm that played with no lv ups. Spend 250 xp X level of unlocking for any core class feature . Everybody was running around with multiple fighting styles . Everyone had action surge. But the most busted was spellcasing with that dm. He instead of spell slots was using miscasts and a 3 strike rule. The dc was 5+2xspell level. Your roll was 1d20 +spellmod If you succed you cast the spell. If you dont you suffer a strike. Fail 3 times and you cant cast the spell till the next day. Was unbelievably busted with things like cure wounds , silvery barbs, dissonant whispers.

[@EdKolis]

Final Fantasy 2: the TTRPG! 😂

[@philipweber9545]

I NEED to know more about this. How did proficiency bonus work? Hp? Saving throws (or proficiency in general)? Spellcasting??? It's so dumb, broken and unbalanced, but im dying to know what kind of stupidity I could create with these rules

[@hansmuller8762]

@philipweber9545 i loaded up the game but the homebrew docs were broken so here is what i remember from memory. Hp =to con score Pb does not exist. Proficiencies are double the mod Expertise is tripple. Subclasses are quest locked. But need buying too. Spellcasting requires teaching. And spells are known for everyone. New spells require you to succed 3x spell level successfull start of day spellcasting rolls, nonconsecutive. And a big purchase for each spell level you access. Anything that works of level tables for uses gets main ability score uses with double cost purchases for more. Feats cost 1000 Adding 500 for every one on top. Stats cost 2k for every 1 + to a score. Also everyone get a cunning action and lay on hands. After purchase. Cause why not pick up 1/3 max hp worth of healing.

[@Altheniar]

Most, if not all, critical fail rules are unbalanced.

[@TheStickCollector]

Maybe base the rules and structures on how the official rulebook phrases it? I wouldn't know anything about that, but that seems the most reasonable if you want to make a homebrew rule but don't know how to phrase it or even balance it for that matter.

[@ottoban861]

My friend thought it’d be silly to have us learn one spell from any spell list everytime we level up. The only catch was that you had to progress through the spell school in order to get high level spells. Additionally you needed to have the spell slots for the level. So if I wanted fireball, I’d need to get a first level evocation, second level evocation, and then fireball. So it’d take 3 levels to get it. Here’s the problem, I was playing an armorer artificer with a paladin friend. I grabbed Shield this way, and with some enchanted armor we found as the game went on, he had a standing AC of 25, 30 with shield, and added my friends charisma modifier and my INT modifier to saving throws. Add on the massive control spells like slow and wall of fire and I had an unstoppable character who my DM could do nothing about.

[@alanbear6505]

I'm going to go back to 1st Ed on this one. Killing a monster was supposed to give you a base amount of XP and then an extra amount per hit point. Our DM decided that meant you get the extra amount for each hit point you inflicted and whoever got in the deathblow got the base amount as well. I told him it was a bad way to do it but he wouldn't listen so I did it the hard way. He also did initiative in order of Dex. I had the highest so when fighting something big I'd hold my action until I was pretty sure I could get in the deathblow and steal the kill. I was racking up XP at least 10 times as fast as anyone else in the group. Talking afterwards they other players were annoyed but admitted they would have done the same. We scrapped what he had done so far and started again from scratch.

[@BlackWolfessUSCM]

Aas a half elf my dm lets me trance. As he says half an elf is still an elf.

[@lulospawn]

Paladins can use a number of spell slots of any level to smite, equal to their proficency bonus. The smite cap was applied to each slot, so it was possible to stack high slots for a lot of added d8s. So basically a level 9 paladin could add 2 level 3 smites and 2 level 5 smites on a single attack. That's strong enough. But notice I said times proficiency bonus. So I only took 2 levels of paladin and went sorcerer the rest of the way, wielding a PAM halberd. I had so much smite fuel that it wasn't even funny. At level 9 I could nova around 200 dmg on round one. I never had so little fun kicking ass and the party hated my guts.

[@EdKolis]

The grappling guy must have mained DK in Smash Bros.

[@jesternario]

As the GM, I am the one who makes the house rules. They tend to be either BS on both sides (as one player described my critical charts, since all sides of a fight could use them) or relegated to one-shots. The players tend to have fun with them. I do recall this one time when I was just learning 5th edition, though. A player convinced me that the XP multiplier in the encounter building section of the DMG meant that all encounters gave that multiplied XP, rather than being a way to balance encounters for parties with higher or lower players than four-six. My players reached level 6 by the end of the third session, and level 10 by the end of eighth. I then went back and read that section properly.

[@RaethFennec]

Finding out what homebrew a DM runs (or asking how they run Surprise or illusions) is sometimes a quick ticket to understand what parts of the game they absolutely do not understand. lol I say this as a DM who runs 7 homebrew rules, and I'm giving 3 a trial in my current game. You have to be very surgical with your changes, and really understand both the immediate ramifications, and long-term effects. I also discussed each one with the players and asked their opinion and consent to them. New DM's seem to almost always overestimate their understanding of the game and its systems. I got invited to a game once, only to find out the DM banned certain martial subclasses, but none of the spellcasters or half casters. And I don't even mean the really strong ones, just... totally random ones they'd had players use that they had issues with. WTF? Billy played and was a bad player, so it's banned for everyone forever now? They also told me if I picked Druid, they'd tell me what animals I could Wild Shape into, but only if I'd committed to playing Druid. I couldn't know in advance. Wow, okay, no. Finally, I picked something else anyway, trying to be flexible, and asked if I could reflavor one of my subclass features. Purely aesthetic thing. They denied it, citing that my magic ability looking different didn't make sense because of REAL-WORLD PHYSICS. It wasn't wild or goofy or anything, I just wanted it to be more thematic to the character. I ran away so fast. NO THANK YOU, GOOD LUCK, BYE!

[@TheT7770ify]

So I was the dm who made things unbalanced. Short background I made my first homebrew campaign, a big thing in this was being able to transform boss souls into weapons (like dark souls) well that campaign didn't end up coming together. A year later a different group wanted to play so I pulled out that campaign. One of them picked a monk. Not knowing how to balance a campaign properly I gave the monk plus 10 to hit boxing gloves thinking that with the monks lower damage it would even out. She never missed again for the rest of the campaign and despite my efforts to try and give her other weapons none of them beat the mechanical advantage of being able to have 4 guaranteed hits per turn

[@KorGarrot]

I will say that our group also does the "max HP on level up" house rule, but only up to level 5

[@Keldun]

IMHO is In My Humble Opinion, not In My Honest Opinion.

[@MitchellTF]

"Invisible enemies get automatic coup de grace." These enemies coudl also go incoropreal at will. We were not warned or allowed to get ANY counter-offensives. I nearly killed that GM. Multiple times. Fortunately, I've had therapy. Also he ALWAYS had enemies focus on my non-offensive cleric. Always.

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

few things say adversarial GMing quite as blatantly as "i can hit you extra hard, but you cant hit me."

[@matth2283]

Even If temp HP stacked it goes away on a long rest, so unless dude was murdering 100s of people in a single day that is impossible to achieve

[@darcraven01]

i think the only "unbalanced" thing my dm ever did was let us add our spell casting modifier to attack spell damage for a 6 session game.. since we rolled for stats i had 20 wis on my druid at lvl 1 and was adding +5 to my guiding bolt at lvl 2 (stars druid). totally demolished enemies. lol

[@wagz781]

To be fair to the dm in the wizard grappling story: that is historically how you're supposed to deal with a spell caster of any sort. If you prevent them from performing somatic or verbal components of spells, they can't cast. It's not RAW, but I think it's RAI.

[@caiusdrakegaming8087]

It is, but it's also just a dick move to have one enemy CONSTANTLY trying to keep the caster grappled. Plus the guy was playing specifically a wizard, one of the seven full-caster classes. There had to be another caster in that party, so feels more like the DM just has it out for wizards.

[@wagz781]

@@caiusdrakegaming8087 Honestly I'm more amazed no one in the party tried to peel for them. Because even that's still a valid strategy if the dm's playing an intelligent humanoid that at least vaguely knows the common shadowrun addage of "geek the mage".

[@99zxk]

"I had 25 AC!" -5e player "Hold my beer" -3e

[@blakeetter280]

probably one i came up with, if you are using two weapon fighting your bonus action attack is the same as your full action attack. thats whaat you trained for, its your speciality, you should be able to attack as normal. this means a lvl5 fighter can have four attacks a turn. this didnt balance at all XD

[@BeaglzRok1]

Our tables don't actually use that many homebrew rules. Stuff like drinking potions as a bonus action, sure, but none of us ever went so far as to like... replace Charisma with Beauty or require a Wild Magic Surge if you crit fail a spell attack roll. At worst it's been mechanics for homebrew monsters, such as a Lich that could Legendary Action cast any leveled spell it had prepared to shotgun two characters with Disintegrate, a Battlemaster Fighter with the recharging superiority die and an amputation attack with stacking DC if you succeed, or a converted Vecna's guard that can respectfully attack with magic weapons and strength drain, and have a soul-stealing Gaze attack. As far as for blanket mechanics for everyone involved, it's mostly just been personal disagreement over how to run things in their respective campaigns, examples include: >Does a DM determine Perception/what the party notices by using a character's passive score, asking for rolls upon entering a room, or rolling secretly? >Does disbelieving an illusion require an entire action to make the Investigation check, or can a player rely on a passive Investigation + Expertise to become immune to illusions a la AD&D? >Does escaping a Grapple require your entire action, or do we allow an escape attempt for each attack similar to how each attack can be a grapple attempt? >If you recognize something as an illusion, does that mean that all of your allies just decide to believe you and are no longer affected by the spell? >When a creature rolls low (sub-10) on a Hide check in combat, is the action wasted because everyone's passive 10+, or are passive scores not applicable to combat and they're still hiding? >Do we allow the use of RAW Wall of Force when the group's players are smart enough to simply hold their actions to successfully apply a sequence of repeating AoE such as Flaming Sphere to trap literally any enemy with no saving throw, knowing the DM will have full rights to use that strategy in response? Little things where it's less a matter of being unbalanced and more a matter of personal preference with how powerful certain mechanics can be.

[@dragonriderabens9761]

Guns It was a modern setting, so they fit just fine The problem was we were getting sniper rifles that dealt 8d6 on a hit and counted as a siege weapon and 4d12 on a hit No STR requirements, and they were all non-magical Yeah…we’ve since started using Star Wars 5e for gun stats, which is FAAAAAAAR more balanced

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

8d6 is a fireball in 5e

[@Lordpooz09]

I didn't get to play long enough for it to become unbalanced, but my character was wearing cargo pants & every individual pocket was its own bag of holding. DM also told me I could just magically have just about anything I want as long as it wasn't too OP or too convenient (i.e. couldn't just happen to have the keys to something or just magically have a powerful magic item) My character was also a thief so any reasonable, normal thing I could have picked up I was permitted to just happen to have it, especially if it was hilarious for me to have. Most of the time, it was just food or alcohol that I had my character magically just have 🤷

[@NexeL_NKC]

How about rule I just came up with? Not even a DM, but here it is: Crit damage is quadrupled, but only when certain conditions are met. You must make a natural crit with any melee or direct spell attack (fire bolt, ray of frost, lightning bolt, etc. excluding Magic Missile because it’s an auto hit.) Your party must each be individually above level 10 in any class. It only happens once per player per combat encounter. It only happens against mini bosses, larger creatures of a certain CR or above, or the BBEG. Any extra effects like divine smite or sneak attack are only stacked on top of the quadrupled damage after calculation (x4 damage + divine smite/sneak attack = total). Your party must also be at 5 or less total HP per player. And finally, the party must have 2 or less players still standing in the encounter for the damage to be applied. I call it: The Last Stand Bonus.

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

also not a GM, but if i wanted to do something like that, i'd give my "players" a expanded crit-range while at low health. also why x4 the weapon/spell damage? RAW you already get to roll twice the number of dice, which also means double sneak attack dice, double smite dice, double superiority dice damage, etc. if that's not enough damage for your taste - the brutal criticals house rule would make getting crit... particularly horrifying (Brutal Criticals Rule = On crit - role damage + max value). even though this would be a player only mechanic i always keep in mind: if *I* got hit by this, would it still sound as cool?

[@golett0331]

My DM banned the 3.5 equivalent of Disengage because it doesn't make sense. Don't like that ruling

[@lyamlantz5728]

My dm has a rule where if you cast a spell you roll a d20 and if you roll a 1 the spell fails

[@ImFangzBro]

Okay but the first one sounds kinda cool. I want to balance it. Robe of Untraceable Swerving Your AC increases by your DEX modifier, up to +3. (minimum of +1)

[@floydprice4164]

Well it was 2nd edition. The DM would give one magical item at session zero when we start over. He would rage over the spell casters. Me (mage) and the cleric would only grab the magic items that would help in increasing spell slots. I would grab the ring of wizardry the cleric grab a amulet that would do the same. In our difference we only started with only 1 spell slot. So the DM came up with half of your casting proficiency to increase your spell slots. So we could start with 3 spell slots starting out. But you couldn't get it if you multi or dual class.

[@savaged49]

Lighting bolt hits all targets in a row including if they are airborne...so basically line spells can hit god now?

[@BronCral]

My DM is using the max HP earned every level up. The best homebrew rule he gave us though, was the ability to crit targets if we beat their AC by 10 or more, and on top of that any crit deals double your maximum possible damage for that attack. Example. If a 8th level rouge lands a sneak attack crit with a rapier, he will be dealing 16 piercing + double the respective stat mod + 48 sneak attack damage. As a Hexblade/Oath of Devotion Paladin multiclass, I have crit almost every attack I've made.

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

crits on a roll of AC+10 sounds cool (very PF2e), but doubling MAX POSSIBLE damage seems a bit... much. suitably epic but doesn't that end battle too quickly?

[@Wbfuhn]

Who's editing, it looks like someone is getting lazy.

[@dragonbreath9999]

If temp hp stacked. Twilight cleric here I come. Whole party has +100hp at lvl 2

[@lotsaspaghetticodejr.6488]

The False Hydra. Remember, at one time it was just a Reddit homebrew post. I believe it was published by now but at one time it was just an internet rumor. If you Google how to defeat a False Hydra, AI suggests how to buff the party with magical items, or suggestions on how to nerf the False Hydra. The False Hydra is so unbearable that the only true way to beat it, is to change it and make it weaker or give your party tools that do not naturally exist within the game.

[@celestevalteir764]

Domain Expansions. Heard enough? Far from the worst thing to happen. Despite me telling them "just so you know, you can always tell me 'no'," they let me get away with the infinite wish glitch. But much worse. I was a measly level.. 5? 6? Hexadin, playing on an evil team (it was a good v evil team, but honestly, the good team was more evil than the evil team). Evil team was falling behind good team because... Good team were the favorite babies. Except one of them, who defracted from good, went neutral, and probably had the worst time of us all. Well, the DM introduced a Deck of Many Things to the good team, and they were quite lucky; two characters pulled Moon(?) and got 3 wishes each. One character used one to enact the 7 Great Plagues on the evil kingdom because... Because... We hadn't done anything to them? We were literally so stuck to our castle (due to the fact that going outside meant getting attacked, either outside or having our castle fall under seige) that we joked amongst ourselves about "being on vacation". So the afflictions just came out of nowhere. Well, skip ahead some and the one neutral person comes to our castle and approaches me, of whom was essentially the leader of our little entourage due to my busted build and good leadership (and primarily me being the oldest member of the team and most active). Well, she sits me down and gives me a gift; a single wish she cannot use due to failing the 33% chance. Why? She thought I was cool (genuinely her OOC reasoning). Not wanting to experience wish strain myself, I ask the DM if my horse (Summon Steed) could do it for me. The DM allows it. Well, after a talk with the other character about how they got this wish, I have my horse wish for a "Deck of Many Things with only the positives, bound to my character" to keep things brief. Knowing the imbalance here, I even gave suggestions to the DM about Monkey's Paws they could create to have the items balance each other, while creating meaningful conflict and narrative across the continent (spoiler alert: these items never get implemented). Well, I get my deck, and it works as normal, but whenever I draw a negative card, instead of applying the affects, I just either take damage or get levels of exhaustion, based on the severity of the effect. 3 levels of exhaustion in and not yet having what I want, I pull once more. Void. Instant 3 levels of exhaustion, which would kill me. I then inquire about one of my DM's homebrew rules; daily reroll. It can be used on *any* roll, no matter what. I ask if it applies to the roll for the card. They say I can. Reroll. *Moon.* 1d3. I get a 3. 3 wishes baby. First wish; I create a simulacrum of myself. Second wish. I don't use a second wish. Since the wishes were part of my abilities, they carry over to the Simulacrum. My Simulacrum uses one of its two wishes to create another Simulacrum of me, then uses the remaining one for restoration, healing me back up. Repeat this process until I'm satisfied, and now, with infinite clones, and infinite wishes, I can pull from this deck as much as I want, make any wish for any reason, and basically be God. And the DM allowed this because I said "well, it works RAW". Reminder: I had told them many times prior they can just say no to something if they want. Made it very clear. Well... I essentially become God (level 20 Hexadin surrounded by levels 4-12 whose only hopes are busted homebrews (trust me, they were *busted*)) and can do just about anything. DM has a custom race (super strong) that some of the NPCs are. They're really good at this one system the DM implemented (soul magic; uses its own modifier and is completely separate from the normal magic system). Yeah, well, with the right series of magic (some possession, soul jar, and surgery), I steal the body of the strongest demigod at the time and get the awesome buffs (+2 to three stats, extra soul mod, a bonus action form change that doubles all of my stat modifiers, and THEN doubles all of my damage, the drawbacks of which I can negate because... infinite simulacrums that move on my turn + wish, all for trading off Shadar-Kai perks). Oh, this was after stealing the 5 dragon mask, the Sword of Zariel, and a few other neat trinkets I can't remember through the deck of things. Honestly, just the infinite simulacrums alone were busted. 20 Pit Fiends. 1 turn (not round, turn). 36 or so Simulacrums. Each Simulacrum mounted upon a Pegasus. Each with a summoned Pact Weapon. Each wearing mundane armors. Each with two attacks, hasted, empowered with various spells, divine smites. Yeah... Only a mist was left in their wake. The only thing that could stop me was divine intervention itself, and I don't mean the cleric feature. I mean that the only trouble I ran into was when Gods specifically got in my way because the Good party insighted them to. I wanted to kill them so bad, but I didn't want to ruin their fun. Even when my character went over and said "yeah, hand your kingdom over or I'll take it", they fought back and I let them. I let them do as they wanted, not without consequence. Then they solved that consequence by pleeing to a God for helping. That's when I knew the Gods were an issue. Two more funny things the DM added. Level cap increase to 40 (out of at least two multiclasses; no higher levels for an individual class), and no cap on stats. I never got to 40 (I didn't need to), buuuut, I got some other nice items from the deck. A tome and a manual. One of bodily health, and the other of leadership and influence. +40 and +200 respectively, I think? That was keeping it low, since I didn't want the campaign to end just yet. I had some Gods to stick it to, and had to finish my Domain Expansion. Oh yeah, about that Domain. Could've grown it to any finite size so long as I got the points for it. Could've grown it to any finite number of damage modifier so long as I got the points for it. Only took 5 points to allow me to target anything within my domain with a single attack (Malevolent Shrine ftw). Only took 1 point for me to make it Barrierless, increasing its size and not locking my enemies in with me. Only took a single reaction with a Sword of Answering to me hitting myself with a Simulacrum to target anything within a finite radius with an attack that could kill 10 Tiamats (the mythic one) that also ignored all resistances and immunities, all on my first turn of combat. A real shame I didn't get to use that one, it is. Suffice to say, the homebrew (and just what was allowed) was not balanced. At all. The only regret I have was not killing those Gods when I still had the chance. As for why I did that all... fun? Nah, it was their fault. My character just reacted to what was presented to them. I was playing a villain. I was just gonna be quiet and meticulous. But, you wanna storm my castle and kill the dragon I tamed? Cool, I'll let it slide; I'm not strong enough yet. You wanna come into my place and steal my things? Same biz. You wanna wish upon my kindgom deadly plagues that raze all the innocent beings of my kingdom with retribution they did not earn? Let me handle the issue at hand, then I'll get back to you. But once the Golden Goose presented its egg to me, how could I not indulge in the power, in the hands of cards, you played against me, and twist it upon you to let it be your undoing? At this point, I was far from even a villain. I was just doing my duty as an acting ruler. Bringing down my Lady's retribution unto those who defile Her lands, Her people, and She Herself. It was just business. Lord Business. P.S. My favorite thing that I did was use multiple wishes at once to create the effects of some 10th-level spells (no Mystra existed to stop me, thanks custom Pantheon) to create a mythal (yay Elven heritage) and then create one of them flying islands. It was a very fun base of operations. I even managed to populate it with more than just my simulacrums (a town of denizens I saved from death at the hands of a raging minotaur in the plane of death, which was under strained rule of my neutral friend, the one who gave me the wish). It was honestly a lot of fun making my own little place. Not to mention, basically making myself into a psuedo-diety with the visage of an angel was radical, too. Ah, good times. Truly good times. I grew bored not even a second, for righteous retribution powers even the most feint of hearts. Anyhow, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Peace.

[@louisup5]

Why would anyone make a Druid/ranger in pathfinder. Hunter already does that

[@SunbleachedAngel]

4:51 There is already a rule for fixed hp gain per level, why would they make shit up?

[@Some_goober657]

This one was more of an unbalanced due to the group: the dm forced any persuasion attempts to be acted out in detail. Regardless of what you roll. Which was bad because several players including myself and the DM are on the autism spectrum. A disorder well known for having issues in social settings. So we were forced to interpret “cues” that our disorder made impossible to see. Not to mention the DM also had Autism so it sucked all around. Also it was stupid to roll a 30 after modifiers and not be able to convince a simple gate guard of anything because of a disorder.

[@davidm8371]

I uhhh... decided to do "super heroic" stat rolling in PF1. Instead of roll 4, drop the lowest... or roll 2 add 6... I decided to try out roll 3 drop the lowest and add 6. The first player that joined is unstoppable.

[@MumboJ]

2:08 I'm genuinely not sure what you mean by this. Were the minions dying on a miss? Completely defeating the entire purpose of minions? Or were the MCDM minions taking 1 damage on a miss so they would eventually die if you miss them like a dozen times?

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

i reckon they mean - if you miss, you still do at least 1 damage (as to not make the action feel wasted), and minions (who are _supposed_ to die in 1 hit), had 1 HP. therefore, even if you missed the minion's AC, you'd still kill it. i'm guessing that OP's GM likes to run epic - cinematic "stand against the hoard" style combats.

[@MumboJ]

@@alchemicalvapour8950 That's what i expected them to say, but instead they mention the MCDM version of minions which all have double-digit hp. Additionally, 4e minions explicitly take no damage from a missed attack, kind of like evasion but for all damage, that's a very important part of their statblock that a lot of people seem to forget about (or aren't aware of if they haven't actually played 4e). The whole point of minions is that a hit kills them instantly but a miss does nothing.

[@SilvanianPirateKing]

My buddy uses xp like dark souls. You can use it to either level up or increase your stats to ridiculous levels like a 50 in strength. The problem is that it doesn't translate well to D&D 5e. It's pretty much become either something wins on a nat 20 or they just lose.

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

in dark souls, your level was determine y your stat investment, putting points into stats had diminishing returned, and the cost to invest increased exponentially per point invested. i feel a hefty bit of background work would have to be done to mesh the two systems together.

[@jaye4773]

My initial disposition towards any homebrew mechanic is pretty sour. Its been pretty rare in my experience that the homebrew was necessary or fair. You can't expect much from something never playtested, and the hubris to do so is part of the red flags of unconvering what was the motivation to implement it to begin with (usually to be more powerful than typically allowed, or the opposite, a DM thinking they need to nerf stuff that WotC heavily playtested)

[@tehrulefoo]

The existence of Twilight Clerics alone proves that WotC cannot be trusted to balance their stuff either.

[@brandonturner4113]

Rerolling initative at the start of every round is actually a variant rule in the dmg It notes the pro is you cant act reckless and get downed just because you know the healers turn is right after yours. Im not saying its good or bad but its a real 5e variant rule in the dmg.

[@wraithreaper22]

Temp HP stacking isn't a thing for a reason. I have a god character who's ability is stacking temp hp, because he's a god.

[@lxchris5252]

Yeah what is that thumbnail

[@themadvirus613]

i think a reupload may be needed.

[@MrRipper]

What did I miss?

[@themadvirus613]

@@MrRipper Near the beginning there is a graphical glitch and audio glitch. Nothing too major, But still noticeable.

[@darkshot4424]

Game full of first time players, and if one of our characters did anything flirty or made ourselves look nicer, it caused every one else in the group to fill a like meeter and if that meeter got to a certain point then our characters would auto confess, for this group all our characters were straight and there was all male and only one female who was played by my girlfriend at the time, it made things incredibly awkward and we only lasted one session, also if your character background is a specific background that he made up for his campaign and did not tell anyone about besides 2 of thr people you were privy to special background information and had everyone else wait outside in 100 degree weather while he said the special info, and remember this is a group of brand new players who have never played a role playing game before, it only lasted one session

[@alchemicalvapour8950]

hmm. they didn't just write said information on sticky notes/index cards and hand them to the players in question?

[@darkshot4424]

@alchemicalvapour8950 sadly he did not do that

[@SunbleachedAngel]

6:20 Changing random spells for no reason whatsoever? crit fumble tables? dumb homebrew rules that punish players for nothing other than "rolling poorly"? Why that sounds like a great fun great DM right there

[@jettblade]

The most unbalanced homebrew I've experienced was in Rolemaster. Flaws in RM are supposed to be a determent to characters to give you more development points. There this flaw called Dark Temptation which with his homerule became the most powerful thing to get. With Dark Temptation you sold your soul to get access to the Evil spells list. It had this whole section about corruption points and forced reshaping of your character. He completely ignored that and gave you the whole list for free. This broke the game. For spells you can learn the first 15 levels of spell list for free, though you have to develop the list. Anything higher you have to seek out and pay to learn more spells, the spell levels go up to 50. This 'flaw' gives you 50 free spell levels with zero downsides besides the occasional demon overlord that may have you do something for them, of which for playing for 3 years never came up once. It was ridiculous. Also you could take this multiple times. I had one character sell his soul 4 times with zero consequences.

[@Sarah-gp3xh]

A 25 Ac isnt unbalanced...

[@Lyze1909]

Depends on what game you are playing. If everyone has such an AC it’s not that unbalanced. If only one player has it, then it is.

[@DylanChu-o9n]

No fire play, also he plans to nerf all fast movement as of now, make some magics shop related(ie spare the dying requires a med kit now, 3 uses 10 gold per bag) really don't know what will happen with the campaign because everyone is casters and i am the only medic

[@Keldun]

5e D&D is, in terms of design, just as boring to play/DM as WoW retail is. Both are designed to appeal to Min-Maxers/casual players.

[@majinsole8554]

How do you make sense of saying that you can’t even use verbal components of spells while grappled? Smdh ~_~

[@danielhale1]

I've said this before here, but the critical fail table has always been garbage in the games where I've seen it used. It basically says every character has a 1 in 20 chance of something wildly inappropriate happening every time anyone has to roll any action, be it a skill or attack or saving throw, no matter how good they are at that activity. Listen one and all: If a GM wants to force you to roll on a nonsense critical fail table, you counter-offer that Yackity Sax play at high volume for the rest of the game session. It will destroy the tone of the game just like the critical roll table did, and the two will work together to properly emulate the clown college the GM has just turned the game into.

[@anothisflame8266]

The rogue trap thing isn't actually homebrew. That's just how traps worked in older editions. You would actively roleplay out your characters, everyone in the party not just the thief/rogue, exploring the dungeon and the rooms found there in. You would tell your DM you *explicitly* what your characters were doing in every minutiae detail and the DM, who had spent the time designing the rooms each in minutiae detail would tell you what happens. It was an Escape Room but theatered in the mind. This is not the DM trying to be an asshole. This is the DM having out a lot of fucking work into designing a deathtrap and wanting you to play through it instead of just rolling a dice and hand waving your success.

[@anothisflame8266]

I should also mention playing D&D like this is actually *very fun* for some people. Is it for everyone? Certainly not. But that's the thing about games. The better ones are often niche and directed towards a specific type of player who would enjoy that. Just like how not everyone enjoys sports, not everyone enjoys Escape Rooms or Action RPGs (5e D&D is more an Action RPG than a traditional RPG )

[@bouloche2459]

Roll initiative every round is an optional rule in DMG. It can be used for preventing your players to "meta-game" by knowing the initiative order. If you talk with them and setup that correctly it's actually a pretty fun rule.

[@ATJonzie]

NUMBER 6 VIEW!!