* You get a non-combat feat at level 1 * You get an artisan tool proficiency at level 1

Oh, those are actually great. What would you classify as a combat and non combat feat? Like would Alert be one cause of the initiative bonus?

> What would you classify as a combat and non combat feat? I didn't make a list on purpose. If you have to ask, you're doing it wrong. Pick something that fits your character's background, makes them more interesting, or gives them some utility.

Does your table lean more towards role play or roll play? No judgement either way just curious.

Role-playing, despite my best efforts.

So, taking magic initiate to get mending, gust and ceremony would be 100%; mending gust and bless, probably okay; eldritch blast, booming blade, armor of agaythis... Nah dude. That's actually pretty cool.

For me, I use the "not 100% for combat" feat option. Dual use feats are great, like Alert or Fey Touched. There's at some noncombat antics which can spawn as a result of their presence. But Warcaster and Polearm master, for example, are exclusively for combat and not a part of the freebie feat. Gain some levels and get those at 4; we're focusing on RP.

Oh boy, I think that's very fun. I'm all for it, but Fey Touched is an interesting place to draw the line. Misty Step doesn't sound very combat oriented but for a spellcaster, it's a free 2nd lvl slot, one more Web by the end of the day. Also Misty Step *is* pretty combat oriented. For the 1st lvl pick, Gift of Alacrity is basically Alert but transferable. You're giving them more combat power than Warcaster to say the least.

Or you just play a race like eladrin that gets that spell for free 1x daily. I made my dmnnad because he didn't know about it and had me surrounded at level 1 by goblins. Year that's a level 2 spell for free, no you can't counterspell it because it's a racial ability. Lol

In this campaign I am playing right now, my Warlock loves to paint. But I used a tool proficiency from the background for it. This would have been amazing!

I’ve started introducing skills points/ level like in Pathfinder and 3.5. these are kind of like noncombat feats (maybe a little less powerful) in it gives the opportunity for a lot more role-playing during down/ non-combat time, Which can be a bit of a problem, sometimes for my combat centered players. By giving them a few very modest perks, it has incentivized them to be more engaged during our downtime I especially like professions/crafting like Cook, Fletcher, blacksmith, jeweler, alchemist, etc. they make character backgrounds richer , and non-combatant situations something to look forward to

The other side benefit of this is, you can develop whole player centered arcs as they try to find a teacher/trainer at certain points to increase their skill level. Kind of like in the elder scrolls video games.

- Point-buy+free feat (no limits, no banned races, etc.) - Starting equipment includes class starting gold and your class equipment (since I typically start at level 3) - Cannot long rest unless in a DM determined safe place (safe haven). Helps me with encounter balance and resource management. - Draw or stow a weapon once for free per turn, additionally you can draw a weapon when you take the attack action as well. Just helps with using a variety of weapons if one wants to. - Anyone can use a spell scroll, but if it's not on a spell list you have, you have to make an intelligence save (10+spell level) or roll on the scroll mishap table (DMG) [I use a lot of homebrew revisions to classes and stuff too.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cKofHiqwi_7XHST_BV5htmRE5x2OuGGDdbjFWmloRvQ/edit?usp=drivesdk)

I actually do the long rest and the weapons one too. I'm stealing that scroll one though

yeah, I have revised the monk, ranger and the fighter classes a bit as well, to make them more usable/fun long term.

I usually prefer the point by system because I don’t enjoy people rolling up their characters at home. Not to say that I believe my players are cheating, however I’ve just had too many great rolls and hardly ever any Bad rolls from players. The real problem with this for me isn’t really their ending ability scores, it’s how unbalanced that player can be vs the other players in the party. Here’s what I actually did in my last campaign which worked out great! I had all of the people use the point by at character creation, but then at session 0 or 1 they each rolled (normally) at the table and picked the best roll out of all of them. They could keep their point buy score if they wanted, or use the collectively rolled stats,( the group rolled stat array is almost always higher), what this did was let the players who like rolling their stats do so, while keeping the playing field leveled for all my players. they could still assign Their scores as they liked but overall they had the same stats, even if not in the same particular abilities. Plus, it turned out to be a bonding experience

Not a mechanical rule but after every oneshot and campaign I DM or even play in, instead of the typical "sesion's over, thanks for playing" I suggest we narrate epilogues about what the characters will do in the near and far future. It gives a perfect narrative closure to all stories.

This is a must! No campaign is complete without the “Where Are They Now” segment.

We just did this. My wife's bard went to live with dryads (including one they'd rescued). My son's sorcerer started a magic school. And my daughter's paladin just went back to fishing.

Yay! It's so cool!

Sounds great! I have to try this

\- Attacking something while an ally is Flanking (3 opposite squares) provides a +2 to hit \- Short rests are 10 minutes long (max twice per day). \- Drinking a potion is a bonus action. Administering a potion is a full action. \- The additional die on crits is always a max roll. \- Gain an inspiration when you "Help the DM". Like, during combat and I forget about one of the orcs attacking, if you remind me and keep everyone honest, you are absolutely getting an inspiration. If I forget the name of an NPC that you recall, gain an inspiration. So long as it's something outside of your own character sheet, and I need the assist, you are getting rewarded. I'm very fond of the last one. It keeps me humble, and my players are more engaged and forgiving.

Wow! Coincidentally i do all these as well! With a slight change to the flanking one... Allies directly across from each other (im talking 12 and 6 o clock, or 9 and 3 etc) get advantage on their melee attacks, all other spaces around the same enemy require the help action to get adv.

For me, granting advantage outright devalues stuff like the Help action, guiding bolt, knocking prone, fairie fire, reckless attack, etc. I think all of those getting used is a good thing, so +2 flanking is a compromise which gives melee a to-hit advantage (helping rival against Archery fighting style), and allows the use of additional buffs and debuffs to ensure hits. If Bob is at 12 o clock, allies at 4:30, 6, and 7:30 all get flanking perks. Yes, the enemy uses this to their advantage as well.

Yeah. So many things give advantage, and often as the only benefit. And then they made advantage not only not stack, but not outweigh disadvantage. I'm not gonna say all dis/advantage should be converted to +/-2, but any additional homebrew that gives dis/advantage should instead give +/-2. Or at least let you choose.

I do the potion one. And for me, crits are I just straight up double the damage. (All Damage dice+any modifiers)×2 and I'm totally stealing that last one.

I'm a fan of the variable potion rules You can drink a potion as a bonus action, but if you use your full action, you get the max healing. It creates an option to weigh, which I think most people find fun. Alternatively, a potion as an action "crits", so you get double dice. But that still allows you to roll below average, just that it's unlikely. In conjuction with alternate crit rules, it could still feel good. Some people do max roll+normal roll, but I like rolling a fist of dice so I think rolling double dice but any die that rolls less than average is considered average rounded down.

I think that last one is fantastic! I also really like your short rest one too. Makes it very clear what players can expect for managing their resources.

Man, i have a lot of homebrew/house rules. Theres the usual of not tracking weight/encumberance (within reason... Like if you want to carry around a catapult, we're gonna start tracking weight) also not tracking ammo (if youre a ranger, I trust youre carrying enough ammo to fuel you for an encounter, and also assuming you reclaim /refurbish spent ammo from your supplies after combat... Its tedious minutiae: im also assuming at some point your characters eat and use the bathroom, but it's not very epic to track that shit (literally) Beyond that i have a LOT of homebrew/houserules that were implemented in order to solve niche problems and increase fun. We discuss these in session zero to agree upon which to use. One big one I use is called "flavourful weapons" it boils down to "why should a character be limited /forced to use an optimal weapon?" For instance, every barbarian with a 2h greataxe, every rogue using a rapier, every wizard using a quarterstaff etc. i dont like archetypal weapons for classes so i use a system where all simple weapons start as d6, and all martial weapons start at 1d10. You can then step the damage dice up or down depending on what you want it to do. Down for stuff like thrown, finesse, reach or light. Step up for "great" and it must be weilded 2h. All non-great weps are versatile as well.

"This is the first poop you've taken in 3 months. Roll a con save to see how it goes. Rolled a 3? You take 5 uh... bludgeoning damage and gain one level of exhaustion due to the strain."

I cringed at bludgeoning damage, but then imagined the alternatives... Piercing? Slashing? Ok lets go with bludgeoning ;)

Eyuh eyuh eyuh ahhhhh (gives birth to demon child) huuuuuunhhh!

> im also assuming at some point your characters eat and use the bathroom I think this stuff is included in the time needed for short/long rests anyway. It really only becomes relevant if you're tracking rations (in the wilderness) or lodging costs (in town).

Children are made of Rubber = Until level 5, Massive Damage rules only apply in the event of a player being eaten, crushed by an object 3 times their size, disintegrated, etc. But a goblin scoring a lucky crit and doing 12 damage to the Wizard with 6 HP does not automatically kill the Wizard. They just drop to 0 HP as if they took a normal hit to 0.

That's a good one

This has made me realize that when I DM, I just pretend the Massive Damage rule just doesn't exist sometimes. I don't like the idea of a sudden, disappointing end to a PC that their player didn't completely see coming. I've had it happen a few times, and it never feels good.

OSR is a lot deadlier than 5e but I find a lot of OSR people have a pretty healthy principle for death. It should never feel arbitrary, instead if a PC dies, the player should feel like they knowingly took a risk and that they deserve the result. Agency and stakes are key. I'm in the same boat, I'll just ignore the massive damage rule if it'd cause instant death by an unlucky crit or something.

The people i play with are very hard core and like challenge and punishment. Exactly this happened. A bugbear surprised the 6hp wizard while he was leading the party into a pitch black cave and the bugbear crit and blew his heart out. The party then swindled a dragon for a diamond to give to a cleric to revive him. New enemy unlocked for later

I’m running custom weather tables and limitations on long rests that are intended to make travel wayyyyy scarier

Expand on that if you don't mind? Im interested

Well my campaign is a hex crawl, west marches type campaign with an emphasis on survival, set in an icy apocalyptic world. Basically, my worlds sauron won, and now uses eternal winter to oppress his people and keep resistance to a minimum. To reflect this, i have several weather tables prepped based on severity (normal, severe,deadly). I’ll roll or determine the appropriate severity, then roll on that table for specific conditions. These add elements like extreme winds, deadly cold temperatures, or heavy snowfall that my players need to account for as they plan their treks. Additionally I roll to see if there is a blizzard at any point in the day, and if there is I just apply the blizzard rules from ROTFM Additionally, i limit long rests to only truly safe places. Typically a town or city. Otherwise its assumed that when players are resting they’re having to deal with discomfort, setting watches, noise or weather or other secondary elements that prevent them from properly resting. This amps up the tension in early levels and really makes even mundane adventures feel dangerous. I can copy and paste my specific rules table if you want to chop it up and use it how you see fit.

That sounds cool and I’d love to see it!

[https://imgur.com/a/xKOKFbF](https://imgur.com/a/xKOKFbF) Here's a screenshot of my writeup! You may want to tweak the damage, and how you choose to implement exhaustion.

Thank you!

Ooh dang that is spicy, I like the nested rolls. Makes it a little less random and a 20 isn't always "your day is just completely fucked" Seems not too hard to adapt to different environments. My characters might go through a desert or ocean voyage at some point I think I could use this for that. Thanks!

Potions are a bonus action, administering them to someone else is an action. Anyone can use spell scrolls, and scrolls have a set spell attack bonus or save DC (which is the bonus/DC of the one that made the scroll) Flanking gives a +2 to attack rolls, but you can't benefit from flanking if the creature is three sizes larger than both of the flankers.

Our rule for HP on levelling up is that you roll, but if you get less than average, you take the average. I think that's our only house rule that's stayed consistent for multiple campaigns.

I remember in my early days I was playing a barbarian with less health than our wizard cause I kept rolling badly.

I have my players roll but if it's below the average, they get a reroll. I've done this since level 2, but they all look so shocked when I tell them to reroll. It's the closest I come to feeling like a benevolent god.

I have no idea why they stuck with rolled HP for 5e. Max HP every level was a super common house rule in 3.5e.

My groups gambling addicts. We have it so if you roll below average you can take average or roll again but must take the second roll. I mean how many 1s can youroll in a row.

Find a scroll? You can use it. Doesn’t matter if it’s on your list or not, or even if you’re a pure martial. Then it’s just my job is to make sure I only give out level appropriate scrolls.

opportunity attacks can be taken as a result of forced movement.  eg: the barbarian is in melee range of a bandit, and the warlock with the telekinetic feat pushes the bandit five feet away from the barbarian. the barbarian would be allowed to take an opportunity attack here should they wish.  it’s opened up a lot of fun strategies at my tables with movement, and i find players work together a little more when they can coordinate attacks like this. 

Awesome points. Awesome points are my reward for players describing things really well, doing something cool, roleplaiyng well, etc. The rules themselves don't really *require* that kind of player engagement, so it is up to us. If you do something cool and go above and beyond with engagement, describe your actions well, etc, you get an awesome point. You can add awesome points to failed rolls, because you're too awesome to have just barely missed, etc. I will only give away a few a session and they don't swing the balance THAT badly.

Ready a potion as a bonus action. Drink or administer a readied potion as a bonus action. Elevates some of the pressure to have a dedicated healer or for everyone to take some magical healing.

I have never seen this before and just sent it to my players. We will be adopting this. Thank you!

Takes a hand too then for a round too then I like it

Being KO'd results in +1 Stress (which I think is similar to oneDnD Exhaustion, but I don't know if they're identical). That's used as part of the optional fear and stress mechanics from VRGtR. Everyone has a phobia that will stress them out if they are forced to face. It encourages some extra creativity in otherwise banal situations. E.g. one of my PCs is terrified of deep or otherwise opaque water, so crossing a muddy river suddenly becomes more of a puzzle than "we swim across".

Yahtzee. When we roll for stats (4D6 drop the lowest), if you get the same number on all four D6s in one roll, you automatically get a 20 in any one stat.

If they beat the odds that well I'd almost be tempted to increase the max to 22 in that stat as well

Inspiration is a reroll, not advantage. That's baseline and always good, and the most direct mechanical advantage I give. Recently I have been testing on potions that require a object interaction rather an action, and an action to get the full roll. Still unsure about that.

Not homebrew, but an ever-present judgement call: if someone has proficiency in a relevant skill, and asks for information or does a common action in that field, I give it to them. My last adventure went by without a single Religion, Arcana, Nature, etc. check. I just don't like 'em. A player who took Expertise in one of these skills would get even more free info, instead of being nerfed because there are no rolls for them.

I dig it. I also like giving out free successes to people who specifically specced into a skill. This is The Thing your character is good at? Fuck yeah, look at you be all badass and shit.

I reveal all DCs and ACs to my players, after they make an action, but before the roll. Essentially, you can't back out once you know the DC is high. Inspiration can either be used to reroll your die, or you can simply add +5 to the roll. Since all DCs are known, you can better choose how to use your inspiration. I stole the idea from FATE. Max roll on the second damage die for a critical hit. All the players roll initiative vs my initiative, whoever gets the higher number goes first. On the player's turn, the person who got the highest initiative is "leader", and then we go clockwise around the table from them, then all my creatures go. I hate initiative and this has really sped up that process. I stole the idea from Mörk Borg. Everyone gets a Feat at level 1. No more human variant. They're the main character, make them feel like it.

I love revealing the DC. I think it makes it more fun to roll checks. If a player doesn't know what the DC is, they don't know what number they get to hit. If they roll a 16, and don't know the DC, they don't know whether that was a success or not until I start narrating. If they know the DC is 15, they can celebrate immediately.

I have all of my homebrew rules in a single document that I hand out. 98% of them are so tiny and situational they aren't worth mentioning here. The one thing that will be in all of my 5e games will be my long rest rules: > #### Long Rests >Long rests are only attainable within a bastion of civilization, such as a city, town, village, fort, keep, or castle. In the wilderness, short rests require 8 hours of uninterrupted rest. In the dungeon, short rests work as written. And my general purpose rewards rules: >#### Goals and Rewards > >I have developed a system of goals and rewards that is driven by the player and coordinated with the DM. If the player says they want to achieve something in the game, they can work with me to turn it into a goal. When the goal is achieved, the player receives a compensatory reward. > >There are two types of goals and rewards: minor, and major. You can have multiple minor goals, but only one major goal. Goals have one simple restriction: the goal must not include the reward. For example, "I want to craft a vorpal sword" is not a valid goal. However, a vorpal sword might just be the *reward* for a goal. > >#### Minor Goals > >Minor goals are small, bite-sized achievements that can be completed over the course of a handful of sessions. For instance, if a player is a cleric of Kelemvor, they may declare that they want to rid the world of undead creatures. The player may receive a minor goal to slay undead, earning a small reward after killing, say five of them. Rewards for minor goals might include consumable items, bonuses to checks, or a similar short-term benefit. > >#### Major Goals > >Major goals are long-term, character-driven goals that take a dozen sessions or more to resolve. For instance, a character may wish to avenge the death of their family. The goal may only conclude after a major adventure arc in which the party investigates, identifies and hunts down the assassin who committed the act. The rewards for major goals are things like magic items, boons, and other permanent benefits.

Every player gets a token that they can spend to reroll, perform an extra bonus action, or call out some advice midcombat. But if they use it, the token goes to the DM and then the DM can use it for the same purposes.

I like to do, on physical games, crit does max damage, not roll double dice.

A bunch that I've never bothered to itemize, since I'm *very* flexible as a DM and run my tables more by Rule Of Cool than RAW. A few that come to mind (many similar to what I've seen already posted): 1. Anyone can use a spell scroll, but you have to make an arcana check of 10 + spell level or it backfires. 2. Potions can be taken as either a bonus action or a full action; on a full action, you get max healing. As a bonus, you roll and get what you get. Administering to another character is always a full action. 3. No Lucky feat. It just bogs things down in my experience, and takes away a lot of tense situations. 4. Inspiration can be banked up to 3 times; it's almost my concession for removing Lucky. I just think it's earned better that way. 5. Critical hit bonus damage is maxed. You roll your first die and then just add the max. So a dagger would do 1d4+4 on a crit, for example. Character bonuses are added as normal after that.

Cool! What happens when a scroll backfires?

Drinking a potion is a bonus action, drink the potion as an action to gain the max back, administering the potion to a fallen character is a full action. Reroll the 1st 1 on hit die upon level up. If you get a 2nd 1 - you're stuck with it.

Running PF2: - You can use a Hero Point to reroll another player's check or save. They take the higher of the two rolls, so no using them maliciously. - Familiars are not targeted by spells if they are not involved in combat. If you only use your pet rat for comic relief, he doesn't have to make a Reflex save when you get fireball'd. - If you know combat is coming, you can take preparation actions even if they're supposed to be done at the start of combat - Monks can drop into a combat stance, you can cast buffs that have a duration, etc. - If you're about to do something that will have consequences that would be obvious to your character, I'll tell you. - Encumbrance is handled on a "be reasonable" basis. As long as the items you *use* on the adventure would be reasonable for you to carry in your pack, I'm not going to nitpick about what's in the Bag of Holding or locked up on the boat. - Same with living expenses. When we're in town, basic food and lodging are priced in silver. You're throwing around hundreds of gold at this point, unless you want to pull a Conan and throw a wild party with wenches and ale... I assume you're covering the basic tavern fare out of petty cash. - If I don't name it as loot, it's not valuable. If you want to strip every corpse and spend your downtime running a "Rotten Bandit Boot Emporium", you're not going to pull ahead on wealth... you're just not going to find loose coin pouches anymore. The amount of wealth you have access to is based on your level, not on your ingenuity. - Above all, if you want to do something, *ask*. I'm more likely to say "yes, if you can make the check" than "no".

Nobody at my table cares about fiddling with expenses for average food and lodging in towns. So we handwave that usually.

My party has a party fund that I withdraw their necessities out of.

Every combat encounter includes the "Suspense Die", it's a giant d4 that I roll onto the table. It ticks down every round and when it hits zero... Something (usually bad) happens to the PCs. I've used this to summon reinforcements, it's how much time until the room floods, how many rounds of fuel are left in the crashing airship, how long is the elevator going to take, how many turns until the baddie transforms into phase two. Sometimes it's something good, the it's how long the heroes have to hold out until rescued I often pair this up with some kind of objective within the encounter, i.e. eliminate a specific enemy or get to this point on the map. It's there to create urgency and drama. And if the party is getting too much decision paralysis, I increments it down too.

1. If we have to look it up in a book, you're either dealing with my off-the-dome ruling or holding your action. 2. Rule of cool is in effect, handing out advantage like candy. 3. If zombies roll a crit fail, they remember that *they* have brains.

I do the first one and second but that third one is now mandatory

Why even do the hit dice thing? Why not just halve the die size and add that to half? ie d8 hit dice = 4+1d4?

For my players? That's way too complicated. I had one guy not know that hit die were used for max Hp. He just thought it was his con modifier every level. And he's the groups tank.

Have your players read the rules? Why are you homebrewing mechanics and rules if your players can’t grasp something as simple as hit dice?

Oh, they've read them. And I'll explain it, they'll acknowledge exactly what I just explained to them, understand it, then 10 minutes later it has completely left their mind. But they are fun

This is how I do it. Makes the minimum you can roll the average. Everyone gets the fun of rolling without bad luck cause a player or two to fall behind. Also makes it easier for me to balance encounters if the wizard didn't roll 1 for levels 2 and 3.

Not really my homebrew rule I think it is an optional rule but I allow ASI and a Feat at the appropriate levels. I am all about my players having fun.

Health potions can be drank as a bonus action and health potions always heal the maximum amount.

* **Crunchy Crits** Instead of doubling what you roll, you take the max die values + rolled die values + other constant values (like your str/dex, weapon bonus, etc). * **One DnD Exhaustion** For each level of exhaustion, you get stacking -1 to all ability checks, saving throws, and save DCs. So much easier to keep track of. * **Take the avg hitpoints at level up or roll.** I let people take the average or roll their hitpoints, but if they want to take the average, they have to decide that before rolling. They can't roll, get a 1, and then take the average. If you're gonna gamble, sometimes you'll lose. * **Flanking grants +2.** Instead of giving advantage, flanking grants +2 to attack rolls. * **One 10 minute short rest a day, the rest are an hour.** PCs can choose to take a 10 minute short rest once a day and it does not have to be at the same time as others in the party. So if someone really needs a short rest asap and others are fine and want to explore the room they're in, identify items, etc, just that one person can take 10 minutes instead of an hour. * **Warlocks can be Int, Wis, or Cha based.** No one at our table has used this yet, but all three of us DMs at our table have agreed that if someone wants to play a warlock, they can have Intelligence or Wisdom be their casting stat instead. They just have to establish that when they create their character and tell us ahead of time. * **Rangers are prepared casters.** I personally think it's really dumb that Rangers, who share the Druid spell list, are learned casters instead of prepared when Druids themselves are prepared. Also, Ranger Subclass lists for the subclasses that don't have them.

These look really good, will definitely give a few of these a try. I especially like the short rest rule.

I have a fun one with potions. I let my party either use a bonus action to quaff a potion in combat and roll for health. Or they can take a full round action to carefully drink down the potion and then they can get max HP from it. I allow everyone a feat at level 1. If they are a variant human, they still get their variant human feature as well. I use OneDnD rules for exhaustion. It lets exhaustion not be as penalizing, and therefore lets me as a DM, use it more frequently without accidentally mercing my table. I also use OneDnD for duel wielding--so an attack action gives both the main and offhand weapon attacks instead of offhand using the bonus action Flanking only gives a +2, not advantage. Still incentivizes it, but doesn't result in a konga line. I use elevation a lot, so 10-29 ft above a target gives a +2. 30+ feet above a target gives advantage. In both cases, unless the target has cover UNDER something, the height advantage also lets them ignore cover.

Number of attuneable item slots is based on Proficiency, not just arbitrarily locked at 3 from 1-20.

I'll be honest, I didn't know there was a limit. I base it on their highest ability modifier. Say you have an 18 strength. Then you have the strength to attune 4 items.

Feat Points for martial classes. Fighter, barbarian, rogue and monk get a free feat at Level 1 and an additional feat whenever they gain a Feat Point at their next level-up. Feat Points are awarded for cool martial moments either in combat or outside of combat. For example, a monk jumping over a chasm of epic proportions. They are awarded no more frequently than once every 4 levels. Half-casters also have a chance to earn Feat Points but they do not get the free feat.

Hidden death saving throws Players don’t announce the results of their death saves. It adds a lot of tension/seems to raise the stakes. It *always* seems like a PC could die by even their second saving throw. People don’t have meta knowledge that will affect their decision to heal or not (ie. “he hasn’t failed a death save yet, I can attack for one more round” or “he’s failed 2 death saves, I’ll provoke 4 opportunity attacks just to heal him”) And yes players might fudge a roll to not die. This remains unspoken, but I don’t care as a DM. And it won’t stop downed characters from being targeted or TPK scenarios

Stealing this

When I used to play in person games, I used hidden death saves as well. The player drop their die in through a dice tower which came out behind the dm screen so even they wouldnt know what they rolled. The nat 20s were always so dramatic.

**1. Extreme Criticals** When anyone scores a Critical Hit in combat, instead of rolling double the amount of dice they will assume max damage on their attack, then roll their dice as normal. **2. Critical Failures** When anyone rolls a Critical Failure on an attack, the creature being attacked may use a reaction to make an Attack of Opportunity in retaliation. **3. DC Ties** Rather than "meets it beats it," I rule that "Ties go to the defender." That means in order to hit AC 15 you must roll a 16, but when making a saving throw with a DC 15 you only need to roll a 15. These are the only three rules things that are always true. I have a few others that exist based on specific campaign settings: **3.5 Decaying AC** When an attacker exactly matches an AC, they damage the armor itself and reduce the creature's AC by 1. **4. Gritty Realism** When traveling in cursed or unsafe lands, a long rest requires a week and a short rest requires 8 hours. Those are my only rule changes: my other “always true” homebrew change is a complete redesign of creature types based on the setting I use.

How do you rule repairing the armour or AC after the fight?

I don’t always rule it as damage to the armor, as AC is already an abstraction of a variety of different defenses. The AC being lower can also be represented as pulling a muscle, taking a minor injury, etc. They can attempt a skill check during a short rest to make repairs, or use their downtime during a long rest to repair/recover.

**Creature Types** The way creatures types are defined in Theronshire is different from standard definitions. These new distinctions are as follows: **Planar Types** -------------------- A creature's *planar* type describes its origins in relation to the River. This typing can change depending on which plane the creature is currently on. All creatures have a Planar type, though some may also have a secondary type. - **Celestials** are creatures that are native to a *higher* plane of existence than the one you are currently on. - **Fiends** are creatures that are native to a *lower* plane of existence than the one you are currently on. - **Natives** are creatures that are native to the *current* plane of existence. **Local Types** -------------------- A creature's *local* type describes its origins in relation to its native Plane. This typing is distinct and will not change no matter where it goes. - **Sentients** are creatures that used a large amount of the Current in their creation. When these creatures die, their Souls move on to the Archipelago. - **Beasts** are creatures that used a small amount of the Current in their creation. When these creatures die, their Souls merge back into the Current. - **Constructs** are creatures that are not born of the Current itself, but are built by the Natives of a plane. **Corruption Types** -------------------- Not all creatures have a Corruption Type (though some researchers consider "Uncorrupted" a type to make note taking easier). Corrupted Creatures are creatures that have been changed in some way after their creation, and their typing differs on *how* they were changed. - **Monstrosities** are creatures who were corrupted by an intrusion from another plane into their native home. They are often victims driven mad by the intrusion. - **Aberrations** are creatures who were corrupted during a failed attempt at traveling along the Current. They are often intelligent beings who did this to themselves. - **Oozes** are unformed manifestations of the Current that leak out of unstable connections between planes. **Mirror Types** -------------------- Mirror Types are unique categories of creature that can only apply to creatures that are *Native* to the Mortal and Immortal planes, and have to do with the unique relationship between those two planes. - **Fey** are creatures manifested by a soul that has been split between the Mortal and Immortal planes; Fey are created by the piece that resides in the Immortal Plane. - **Undead** are creatures manifested by the other half of a soul that has been split between the Mortal and Immortal planes; they are created by the piece that remains in the Mortal Plane. - **Returned** is a creature whose soul was once split into *Fey* and *Undead* and has had its components reunited.

context, my group plays pathfinder 1e ​ max health on level up. (we do combat heavy, and our characters get hurt a LOOOOT. like, regularly still going down a lot. if you roll 3 nat 20's in a row to crit, whatever it is just dies. i dont care if its a goblin or a god. it fucking dies.

To be fair, pathfinder 1e is a far deadlier system. Even from how negative hp is a thing alone. If you're trying to make it be less lethal, max health on level up is fair.

eeehm. more we are letting the dms (we have a rotation of whos the dm at any time) do what they want, as we have the highest chance for survival. ​ our characters die... semi frequently.

Crunchy Crits: Weapon damage and base spell damage is Max plus a roll (spa crit rapier is 8+1d8+Mod rather than 2d8+Mod, or Scorching Ray is just 12, not 2d6. All additional damage is double dice as normal, so a crit level 1 sneak attack with that same rapier as above is 8+1d8+Mod+2d6, not 2d8+Mod+2d6. This also does apply to NPCs and monsters, which my players actually love to see. Level 1 feat/Background feats. Every character starts with a feat at level 1, usually limited to non-half feats.

You get a free feat at level one, and a feat with every ASI. For critical hits instead of rolling the first extra dice you just do the max damage of that die. For example, a crit with a glaive would be 1d10+10+relevant modifiers. Instead of using a bonus action for two weapon fighting, once per attack action one of your attacks hits with both weapons. So you add the damage dice of the other weapon to an attack. If you have the two weapon fighting style you would also add the relevant modifiers to the damage as well.

Man I wish we used #1 last campaign. My paladin had less HP than the sorcerer at lvl 5.

Long rests can only be taken in safe locations. Short rests require food, water, shelter. Slot based inventory. Use of B/X style exploration turns in dungeons. If you want to flee combat, normal grid movement rules don't apply.

I do 1 and 2. What's slot based inventory? And what's B/X style exploration?

Slot based inventory is a way to track what/how much players can carry without doing as much math. In 5e I guve players a number of slots equal to con score+strength bonus but I've seen other calculations. B/X is Basic D&D (sometimes called red box) and it uses a turn based system for exploring dungeons. Basically each turn is 10 minutes and players declare what actions they want to take on their turn. There is a 1 in 6 chance of a wandering monster every other turn. This creates some tension/risk and also makes it easier to track spell durations, torches, food, rests etc.

Ah ok. How do bags of holding or spatial items factor into the slot system?

I never give my players bags of holding because that doesn't fit the type of game that I run (and what would be the point of having players track inventory if I were just going to give them bags of holding) but, yeah, a bag of holding would take up one slot and would have some number of slots that feels right.

Meet doesn’t beat. RAW is meeting a AC/DC beats it, but at our table you have to be at least 1 over to beat it. Seems small and arbitrary but it adds just that tiny bit of extra difficulty that really makes those extra little +1 boosts matter.

(1) bonus feat at level 1 and 4, mostly skill and character focused feats (2) For Shield and similar spells the caster must be able to see the trigger to react (3) Hero points in place of Inspiration, each player gets 2 for the session and can use to reroll, use features in narrative ways or add something to the scene (basically like FATE or Fabula Ultima) (4) Clocks and Narrative resolution (5) Damage while at 0 hit points is always only 1 death save failure (6) Death saves are rolled in secret (7) There's no resurrection Also there's a ton of homebrew classes and feats that are greenlit like Laserllama's alternative classes Edit: Almost forgot because I use it so much my friends started to use as well: (8) Short rests are 10 minutes

-two weapon fighting always allows for bonus action off hand attack -bonus action to give yourself a potion, action to administer to others -10 levels of exhaustion, 1-9 subtract from rolls and 10 kills -two successful grapple checks leads to restrained (I don't actually know if this is a real rule but my tables used it for a while) basically two members can really hang up on someone or one can spend two turns grappling Honestly I know we play with more but these are consistent for me

You can cast Identify without the material component. Or rather, we’ll always just hand wave it and say the pearls are in your component pouch already. 100gp for a first level spell just seems insane to me. I get that Identify is a huge step up from previous editions, where all you could do was a vague Detect Magic, but still, 100gp for a 1st level is just…too much

you can cast as many spells in a turn as your actions allow, its honestly not a problem, there are so few bonus action spells and it just makes the casters use up their resources faster.

None, because we play SO many different RPGs at our table. Even my most common one (no non-negotiated PVP) doesn't apply all the time.

Intelligence mod at character creation equals more proficiencies

Hate fumble rolls on a nat 1. A high level fighter has a 5% chance every attack to lose their weapon, at high levels, that's upwards of 8 attacks with action surge, that's before you add in potential haste, bonus attacks from feats ECT. Whereas a high level mage can just focus on save spells and never need to roll a single D20 which means they never crit fail. I regularly use two homebrew rules: HP at level up, very similar to yours, they roll as always and if it's below average, they get a choice, they can take the average, as if it was a fixed HP level up, or they can roll again but they MUST take the new result. Potions, drinking a HEALING potion, is a bonus action, in combat, roll as usual. But you can use an action to gain max healing, out of combat, max on use. I also say the healing is NOT affected by beacon of hope, only spells or other healing abilities is boosted by this.

I use all of the Alternate Classes from u/laserllama, which I’ve found to be an incredible addition to the game that gives players a lot more room to build characters. Beyond that, I have enough homebrew rules that I have them all listed on a WorldAnvil Page that I run through whenever I start up a new game with new players: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/alyria-roy-sauce/a/house-rules-article Some favorites include Expert Intellecf (Additional proficiencies based on your intelligence modifier), Held Movement (You can hold up to 10 feet of movement with your action when holding an action), and my reworked rest system which includes 4 types of rests rather than just 2 (Breather, Short Rest, Long Rest, Full Rest). Those are all listed in the link above, alongside a number of more narrative based Homebrew Rules to inspire more opportunity for the group to RP important scenes. Another thing I’ve been workshopping lately is reworking the fear mechanic because I think it’s boring in the base game. I want to rework it to where, everytime you are frightened, you pick one of four fear responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Fight means you stand your ground, albeit at disadvantage, flight means you run away, freeze means you cut your speed and lose either your action or your bonus action, and fawn means you’re charmed. And then the last big thing I do is I reworked all of the races from 5e to be more thematic and interesting, as well as balancing them all around a 37 points on the Detect Balance Scale: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NBeLEBaCKWNLH82EKAU Would love feedback on any and all of the above if you feel like perusing :D

I do +2 for flanking, and let players roll 4d4+4 for stats, Dark Sun style

Inspiration can stack up to 3. You can use one point to reroll once, you can use 2 to get a 10 on the roll, or all 3 to get an instant nat 20. It's had massive positivity in my table, and people use it on grand occasions or simply out of spite when they want to hit an annoying mob.

I call it the “power of friendship” buff. Any time a PC lands a NAT20 when attacking, EVERYONE adds their base damage dice to the damage total. So the Warlock contributes a d10 (Eldritch blast), the ranger a d8 (from his bow) and so on. The whole party’s base damage is added to the NAT20 hit. My players love it and it makes them feel like they are working together when fighting.

We use the "bonus action for drinking a potion, action to administer it to someone else" rule We also have an extensive list of non-lethal options for damage. Certain spell damage types can be set to non-lethal, blunted arrows are available for non-lethal ranged attacks, beanbag rounds for the one artificer who always brings a shotgun to the swords and sorcery table, etc. We've had to parse out exactly the range at which the Observant lip reading feature functions. (Settled at 120ft with clear visibility and lighting conditions) 1st level bonus feat

I edited the flying rules to match how the “Hold Person” spell describes how it affects flying creatures. Ex. You must use 40 feet of fly speed to stay 40 feet in the air, or use 40 to fly 20 up and 20 out. Threats to NPCs from players will be treated as threats in real life (once they leave they are getting reported) Don’t talk about killing something directly in front of it. One of my parties played WbtW and talked about killing people they were negotiating with, outside of game, whilst in game being directly in front of them.

>Threats to players will be treated as threats in real like (once they leave they are getting reported) This is perhaps the one time I agree with the dopes who comment "don't you mean CHARACTERS???? XDDD" when people use "player" as a synonym for "character". I legitimately thought you meant that you needed a rule about calling the cops on your players over the game, and had to read your other comment to understand.

1. When starting with fresh characters, at least one has an item that lets them cast the Aid spell. 2. Critical Hits are max damage *plus* a damage roll. 3. Ties against AC or a DC check favor the defender (goes both ways for attacks against PCs or monsters)

1. For HP I have them roll first, then choose to take the result, the average, or reroll and take that result instead 2. For Critical hits I double the dice and any modifier (so 1d4+3 would become 2d4+6) 3. My rule for initiative is probably the hardest to explain but has easily had the single most positive response from anyone I've ran for: For initiative I have everyone roll as normal but only ask for who has the highest result, then I have them take their turn and afterwards have everyone left roll for initiative again. We repeat this until everyone has gone and then we start a new round. It's faster to get going, makes everyone pay attention to who has and hasn't gone, and it keeps the turn orders dynamic.

It's "faster" to roll initiative five times per round, usually more? That seems... hard to believe. Even just rolling once per round was a huge chore when I tried it, and I use a very simple tracker at the table. Are you also rolling for each enemy/group of enemies every turn?

Free feat in character creation. Potions are a bonus action unless administering it to someone else. Nat 20s always succeed. Nat 1s always fail. If you get a 1 on rolling for HP, you reroll. Something I've considered doing since the book of many things came out is trimming the deck of many more things down to just the cards that are minorly beneficial, and having everybody draw one at character creation

Additional dice on a crit are maxed Healing potions are a bonus action to drink Reroll 1s for HP on level up (I've actually mainly switched to fixed HP) Everyone gets inspiration at the start of the session

Yeah we mostly switched to fixed HP too, and point buy / standard array stats as well. The randomness there is just not worth it. I like the inspiration idea, might try it out. As for the other two rules: > Additional dice on a crit are maxed We found out that while it works well with physical attacks (usually 1, sometimes 2, max 3 smaller dice), it kinda breaks on some big spell attacks that use more dice. So, I reworded it to "When landing a critical hit, you can choose to not roll one of damage dices, instead taking it's maximum value" This still fixes the original issue (I rolled 20, but then rolled double 1 for damage), while not making it super overpowered when lots of dice are involved, where this problem didn't exist in the first place. > Healing potions are a bonus action to drink That makes potions better, but still not good enough, in my opinion. Our rule, verbatim: "You can use healing potion as an bonus action, rolling for stated number of HP (i.e. 2d4 + 2 for Common Potion of Healing), or as an action, healing full max amount of HP (2\*4 + 2 = 10 HP). Out of combat potions always heal for full amount." I found that this makes for interesting choice in combat, while boosting potions usefullness outside of it too.

I use max for hp dice up to level 5, and then normal rolls after that.

Have you considered changing hp rolls to d6+half original die? So a d6 remains a d6, but a d8 is d6+2 and a d12 is d6+6? Or as an alternative, half die rolled + half die maxed? So d10 is d5+5?

Epic success: If you beat DC 35 on an ability check something awesome does happen on your success.

You can use your reaction in combat to say 6 seconds worth of dialogue, this includes back and forth. Giving my PCs more opportunities to RP or communicate with each other is definitely a net benefit

I do a similar crit/miss roll concept. On a nat 20, you have the option to reroll a d20 and upon a second nat 20 you can either inflict more dice damage or elect to roll a 3rd d20 on which if it is again a nat 20 the creature/target dies regardless of hp. If you miss on either nat20 its just a normal hit. So the payoff could be incredibly worth it or you could cost a fight. My players tend to love the chances. The likelihood is incredibly low and most of my players just elect for extra damage on the second one. A few have tried for a 3rd but always end up losing the crit. On the other hand I have the nat 1 be against them. You roll a nat 1, you not only miss but are required to reroll and if you get a second nat 1 you drop your weapon and are required to reroll again. If you get a 3rd nat 1, the weapon does its weapon damage to the player and the weapon is dropped. It's only ever happened once in my 17 years of dming but it's fun having players unwillingly drop their weapons. Puts a little extra into the game to make you feel either badass or just clumsy.

When attacking an enemy and surrounding/flanking, you gain a +1 to hit for every character surrounding the enemy. If 4 people are around an enemy, it only makes sense they Cessna hit easier. This is for both high Armor class and high Evade class (I split them because someone at my table argued once, and I gave up rather than dealt with the argument.

I stole an idea from Numenera: I give the players the ability to cancel out an 'intrusion'. Basically, if there is potential for an encounter to occur, like at camp or when walking through a trapped dungeon, when you as the DM start to push an encounter, the player who notices it can choose to spend an Inspiration to keep it from happening. But, if they choose to let it happen, they gain an inspiration instead. For example, the party is settling down for the evening taking turns keeping watch. During the third watch, I ask the player keeping watch to roll a Con check. If they fail, they start nodding off. At that point, you ask if anyone wants to intervene. If they accept it, the watch player would get an Inspiration and wolves would attack, squirrels would steal their food, etc. But if someone intervened and spend an Inspiration, their character wasn't resting deeply and noticed the watcher nodded off. They jostle them and we all move on with the night. You don't offer it every time something happens, but I usually try to do one for each character during each session. You could do funny ones, like feeling the need to sneeze when talking to a dignitary, or a potentially disasterous one like the aforementioned wolves. It helps the players feel like they are controlling their fates a little and adds to story buy in. Also, we use the Dice of Fate: You can make any one roll a Nat 20, but in return, I can make any one other roll a Nat 1.

Healing Potions will always heal for their maximum amount (but still take an action to use). My reason for that is that I want my players to be able to depend on them. For example, if you use one in combat it's often a gamble whether it will be useful or not because you might roll bad, which means that you wasted your turn. By knowing exactly what the pay-off will be, players can better strategize and evaluate their options instead of only using potions for downed PC's.

New player? Max HP with creation. Just because I allowed it that one time doesn’t mean always. If you abuse a trick it will get used against you.

Resting outside of a proper bed (like a tavern) doesn't reduce exhaustion just stifles it. Also u receive no hit dice. Every level of exhaustion is a -1 to every roll. 3rd lv exhaustion is half speed. Lv 5 is death saves. Flanking a creature is +2 to hit not advantage. You need pack tactics for advantage. I haven't played but want to try these out. Remove constitution and replace it with highest of dex/stg mod. Possibly let bar add both for con. Fighter, Monk, Barb, ( maybe rogue, paladin and ranger) get 5 attunement Slots.

* Critical hits have their first, standard damage die maximized. * Death saves are whispered to the GM or rolled behind the GM screen by the relevant player. * Everyone gets a free feat at 1st level. Lucky is banned. * Healing from 0 HP results in a level of exhaustion. * Long rests may only be completed in a GM-supported safe haven. * No innate darkvision. * Opportunity attacks can be provoked by casting a spell or standing up from prone. * Potions may be consumed as a bonus action or administered as an action. Using an action to drink a healing potion maximizes the healing. * Readying the Attack action awards all attacks. * Spellcasters may cast spells when they are out of spell slots of the appropriate level, at a cost of taking one level of exhaustion per level of the spell, up to a maximum of 5th level. * When rolling for HP, reroll numbers below your Constitution modifier.

-Free feat at character creation. -Hitpoint rolls take their average if they roll under it. -Bonus action to drink a potion. Action to administer to another creature. -Ability Score Improvements include a free feat. If the feat you pick gives a stat gain, it takes the place of one of the stat points you get to allocate normally. -Excess damage dealt with melee attacks can be applied to a second creature within your reach, provided you make a successful attack roll to hit the second creature.

Tie always goes to the player.

Drink potions as bonus actions. Administer potions as an action. Optionally if you use your action to drink the potion (or i.e. out of combat) it heals for max instead of rolled. Anyone can cast from spell scrolls. You just risk a roll on the d10,000 chaos table if it misfires. Chance of a misfire increases if you couldn't cast it under normal rules. Level 1 hp is max. Level up hp is rolled, but always a minimum of average+1 DM Inspiration is a re-roll after seeing result, not advantage. No flanking On a player's turn during combat they can make a free skill check, including my homebrew skills like Martial Knowledge or Alchemy, to try and determine more information about the fight (confirmation of a boss mechanic, their exact AC, etc.)

Drink a potion as a bonus action, roll to determine healing impact. Drink a potion as an action, max healing. 

Team tactics for combat Healing kits get HP healing

Why not just roll a half dice or have double values rather than doing rerolls for HP in your homebrew? Eg: D6 levellers gets 3+1d3 D8: +1d4 D10: 5+1d5 D12: 6+1d6

Similar to your crit-gamble, one friend ran a game that had exploding crits - but instead of rolling an extra d20 it was based on the damage dice. If on the critical roll you roll max, you get to roll again, and if that also rolls max, you roll again... ad nauseum. Hilariously this meant that if a kitten got a critical hit, then whatever it hit would explode in a shower of gore (they did 1d1 damage you see) The DM did refuse to allow the barbarian to wield a stick that had a pair of kittens lashed to the end of the stick, and then made a general exception for kittens after that.

Not sure if someone already said this but I started rolling my players' perception and insight rolls (plus their modifiers) behind the screen, so that they don't \*know\* they don't know something. Rolling a 20 and knowing it was a 20 means you know that you know everything; rolling a 20 and being unsure if you rolled a 20 and therefore wondering if that's it is more realistic, and a bit more uncertain.

Flanking is a +2 to attacks instead of advantage. Level 1 free feat

Here are the ones off the top of my head that have become "evergreen" whenever I run anything: 1. Adventurer's Packs, meant to replace Explorer's Pack and the like. Each Adventurer's Pack has 5 uses and a Theme. You can expend a use to pull any non-magical item with a value of up to 10 gp that adheres to the Theme. The items pulled out are permanent (add them to your inventory list) and can include any item in the Adventuring Gear section, or whatever you can come up with, subject to DM discretion. 2. Adventurer's Intuition. At any time, the players can ask for a hint like, "What would my character think to do next?" Depending on what question they ask, I have them roll an ability check (usually Insight), and depending on their result, I'll give them more or less of a hint. 3. This was stolen directly from a UA: Non-prepared spellcasters can swap out one of their spells known every Long Rest. And all their spells on level up. All my groups have appreciated it, and the prepared spellcasters weren't upset at all, because they could still swap out their whole spell selection every Long Rest. 4. Healing Potions heal their max amount when you drink them as an action, and their die roll when you drink them as a Bonus Action. I wanted to incentivize my players to spend more money on healing potions, and making them drinkable in combat was a good way to go. 5. I started to just allow people to use their Inspiration to reroll, because I **could not** get them to remember they even had it before they rolled. It was always immediately after. And honestly, it's turned out pretty dang good. Especially that emotional roller coaster of Really Important Roll -> Oh no! A Failure! -> Oh wait! I have Inspiration! -> Yayyyy, I succeeded!

Those first two are genius and I really need to do that health potion one

Swap weapons for 1/2 movement speed. Let players start the game with 1 uncommon magic item that does not require attainment and 100 gold to buy their starting equipment. Both of these really don’t hurt the overall balance of the game and the second one it makes character creation more fun for the players and gives them a much needed boost at level 1.

1. The way I do crit hits is I let the player roll for damage, and then they can choose to either double that number OR roll a second time 2. I don’t know know who came up with the potion rule but I always use the one where if you use a full action, you get the full amount of healing, but if you drink it as a bonus action you have to roll for it

1. The bonus damage from a crit is always maxed. For example if you roll a crit and normally do 2d6 + 5 damage, the crit would be 2d6 + 17damage. 2. Flanking is +2 to hit or +5 for triple flanking. This rewards positioning, but doesn’t nullify class features that give advantage. You can’t flank something two sizes larger than yourself without more and more people surrounding it. 3. Health potions are always max heal. +10 for normal, +20 for greater, etc.

Whenever a creature rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll, any creature within 5ft of the attacking creature may use their reaction to make an opportunity attack

Oh that's a dangerous one

I have several: * When rolling for HP, if you roll under the median, take the median * If you are impaired by a status ailment that will require you to give up your entire turn and you fail your saving throw, you can automatically break out of it and have your turn for a modest 20% of your Maximum HP. I call this "Break Out" * Driving inspiration from the Persona series, I offer many free time opportunities for the characters. Depending on the action you choose to take, you'll get experience for the 6 stats (I call them Pips) as well as unique "Wild Pips". Turning in these stat pips will allow you to increase your stat by 2. You can turn in a combination of the stat pips and wild pips. You can combine this with unique opportunities to raise your Maximum Stats. * PVP is heavily discouraged, if you attempt to do anything that negatively impacts another PC, the owner of that PC will decide the outcome (whether success, failure, or letting it go by roll). * I often create hidden dark environments that deal in favors rather than currency. * All races are allowed, even the monstrous ones. Just talk to your DM and lets gitterdun. * RaI is the standard, but RoC is heavily used when the situation calls for it. Again, talk to your DM and gitterdun. * You want a love interest? Talk to your DM and tell me your plans! Let's gitter-\*SHOT\* * Don't be a dick.

- Expert proficiency in a class oriented skill at level 1. Like Stealth for Rogues, Arcana for Wizards. - Crit = (Max Weapon damage) + (Proficiency Bonus) + Weapon damage dice roll. This came about after a player rolled a crit and rolled a 1 for damage.

Free feat at character creation is a no-brainer for me, every time

My house rule is pretty easy. No 5e 🫠

Exploding crits is a neat thing and could lead to some really great moments. In my personal games we use alot. 1.grid based inventory with weight tracked as 1 pound per square. 50 gold to a pound. 2. A slightly modified version of the tension dice as written by the angry gm. (Basicly every time you waste time in a dungeon you drop a die into a cup and when you do somthing loud you roll the cup and if any land on a 1 a wondering monster shows up, you also roll on a short rest) 3. Modified inspiration system where you are granted one when the group collectively decides a good decision was made. And the inspiration grants an automatic success that can be cashed in any time before the end of the session or it's lost. 4. Spell mishaps and potion mixing hourserules from the dmg 5. Wands have a random number of charges when found and can't be recharged. 6.crit failures cause somthing negitive to happen as well as just failing the attack (yes this is a houserule lol) we also use crit failures on skill checks 7. We use a system for keeping track of ammo that uses check boxes. It's assumed you can recover half of any ammo you use so when you first shoot you make half of a box on the ammo sheet and then make a full x the second time to mark a full arrow gone. 8. When leveling you can choose to roll for hp or take the average. 9. When completing a long rest you get back half of your hit points. 10. Death saves are rolled in secret by the dm. As well as any knowlage check.

Somewhat depends on the skill of the table but potions being a bonus action is common. As well as alternative Magical attunement. Giving Int based characters more attunement slots because there isn’t enough love to Int characters at lower levels.

Drinking a potion is a bonus action

PC at level 1, except the races that have initial feat, get to choose from tough, skilled, or magic initiate.

D&D only: I always allow a level 1 feat. If you can replicate your stat rolls with point-buy, you get to re-roll. We do not acknowledge dandwiki. If r/3d6 gets into the finer details of a rule, we can safely ignore it. Includes other games: Might Defense is fine in combat, but you’ll take half damage. Use an accent so we know if you’re in or out of character. It doesn’t need to be that good. I will make some concessions on the rules so you can have the character you want to play.

For 5e Only a roll that equals the AC will reveal the actual AC to players, it also is half damage ( unless it already would be less or something similar) the first time for monsters and always for PCs. Short rests are instant time wise , but any on going positive effects (eg mage armour) loses a full hour Any time a PC is dropped to zero hit points it suffers a point of ONEdnd exhaustion (-1 per point)

every fighter gets Martial Adept feat no matter their subclass

Not a mechanic rule, more I just hate the currency conversion RAW. I don't use electrum because a random half value complicates a clean base 10 system. Outside of encounters, if I really need an NPC to be able to do something for story purposes that doesn't fit in the mechanics, I'll fudge it. In combat, RAW.

I refuse to use electrum as well.

When I ran 5e I always rerolled 1s for HP because it just feels bad lol

Scrolls are for everyone Potions are bonus action Point buy plus feat, banning all other sources of level 1 feats to balance all the random feat bs

When you have distrubuted your stat points you may lower the lowest by one to increase the highest by one.

1. Bonus Action healing potions 2. Crits double damage, not double dice. Crit misses deal 1 damage to self or nearby ally, and do none of the attack’s other effects. 3. Any damage can be made into non-lethal 4. Healer’s Kits heal a downed creature 1hp and wake them up, and have 1 use per kit.

When I'm DMing Sorcerers use spell points instead of slots. It differentiates then from wizards and really leans into the magical flexibility. Additionally, sorcery points can be used interchangeably with spell points so metamagic can be used way more freely. The limit of 15 known spells at level 20 hurts way less when you can twin them, extend them, subtle cast them etc without running out of the resource to do so in the blink of an eye

My rules are normally- - Make sure every piece of kit is sanitised, - Give your yeast a starter of atleast a day - Make sure your hops are fresh - Only ever do fly sparging rather than batch sparging to avoid scalding your mash Hope this helps 😁👌

Two big ones: 1) We have a long running hp mechanic. The first half (to a max of 30) of your hp is "armor" and "regenerates" after each combat as long as it wasn't fully depleted. If it was, it comes back with a short rest (to repair your armor). Doesn't apply if you aren't wearing armor, a rule explicitly because our druid player is a smartass. This mechanic helps removed the whittling down of health as a attrition mechanic and rewards smart play. 2) We have a long running death homebrew mechanic. If a player dies, they only get 1 death save. If they fail, they die. When you die, anyone can bring you back with a cantrip spell that everyone in the world can cast. But, the cost of the spell is that both the caster and the target take a 1d6 penalty to a random ability (2 d6s are rolled). For, there must be a price to pay. That penalty lasts forever, cant be undone, and if an ability every reaches 0 via this means, they are truly and irreversibly dead. The only way to undo the penalty is completing specific dungeons in the world that are known to reverse the effects of the revive spell. But, the DM makes it very clear that those dungeons are optional and that in them, the gloves are off. They are purposefully overturned and venturing into one is very possible the permanent death of the party. It's a bit complex of a mechanic, but allows the party to flirt more with high-lethality situations while still having stakes. Also makes for some fun RP. Had a paladin with 8 int get revived and take 6 int damage. Until he got those points back, it was a weird mix of tension and "me like God. You like God? No? Ok then. Time for boink."

Here's one. Whoever the party tank(s) are get to take at least the average on each each hd roll during level up. If Im gonna give them hard challenges, I need them ready to take a beating.

Scavenging, herbalism, tinkering, forging, ect are to be done offline. Players say they want to do it. If they have the time to do so it happens. Only in between sessions do they then get to make all the rolls and check tables to see what they get. Been playing 5e for a bit, but when I played 3.5 for forever, I had a long running rule that if you knew what you wanted to do when you got to your turn you got +2 on the first roll you needed to make. Considered it a "well planned" bonus. Though boy did I have a lot of simplifying homebrew for 3.5 to cut down on the number of rolls. I love 3.5 and still struggle to ask players for the 5e skills instead of 3.5 ones, but boy was it bloated in terms of number of dice rolls.

Why can't you counterspell a racial spell?

Mine is that crits fully doubles total damage, both roll and modifier, both for the players and the enemy. Idk I like how it can really turn the tides of battle and make a good roll a very big event, it creates an instant turning point

Very few of these are rules I came up with myself, but have been stolen or adapted from my friends 😅 1. When rolling health and hit die, take your roll or average, whichever is higher. 2. Drinking potions is a bonus action. However, for healing potions, you can choose to use an action to drink it for the max amount of healing. 3. Chunky crits: treat the first roll of the damage dice as though they were maxed. 4. If starting above level 1, take starting equipment/gold and then an amount of gold equal to [the number of levels above level 1]d4 x10. So if we're starting at level 3 (which I like to do), they take starting equipment + 2d4x10 gold. 5. Resistance to the same damage type from multiple different sources stack. Resistance -> Immunity -> Half absorption -> full absorption. If someone wants to go all in on absorbing a damage type (and dedicates item slots, attunement slots, and feats to do so), I'm gonna let them. 6. I make Moonbeam an action to cast and a bonus action to move on subsequent turns. Might be OP, but I HATE Moonbeam as is and I want it to be better 😅

Free feat at level 1. My caveat being I assign you the feat based on your backstory. Low effort or no backstory = you forgo the feat.

In DnD 5e: - When players receive a crit, that leaves a scar. - Everybody rolls for characrer creation, we pick the best one, sum all dices and use this as a point buy pool. Only one stat can be -8. This way all characters are equally powerful. I also believe that PCs are heroes for some reason so it is natural that they have high stats - Players can break the rules anytime if it is for aesthetic narration. - I can break the rules anytime in order to make the session more interesting / fun / epic.

When you crit you roll damage as normal, and then add the max for your damage die on top. So, if your standard damage is 1d8+5, you roll that, and then add 8. This seems like a pretty common homebrew and make crits always feel rewarding. ​ When taking a health pot in combat, you can take an action to drink it and it automatically returns the maximum amount, or take it as a bonus action and roll the die.

1 certain magic attacks can be countered or dodged, like fireball can be knocked back, blown up(with other elemental magic), or let’s say an enchanted sword could block lightning attacks(much like how palpatine’s lightning can be blocked by a lightsaber in Star Wars) 2 player’s death converts them into a “black box” (inspo: Nier Automata), which can be carried around by the rest of the party until they can revive them somehow (potion, wizard?) Just so player doesn’t feel fully left out, they can also move in box form, and their mind can still converse with remaining players.

Floor 20's count, and you get inspiration. Dice that fall on the floor are always hilarious. Looks like a damn rugby scrum, everyone has their hands up.

My DM has replaced Inspiration with Luck Points. Basically at the start of each session we get to roll 1d4 for luck points and get to roll another if we help out the dm, by doing a Session recap for example or rp well. They are capped at 20. And you can spend them to enhance your rolls for checks and saves but only spend 10 max on a single roll that way you can ensure that your character succeed in something they should be very good at even if you roll low.

Free Level 1 Feat, a rolled stat array (so everyone is using the same numbers, just put in different places, and we still get the fun of rolling dice), and Brutal crit damage (max damage die, plus normal roll)

characters must roll for attractiveness

The big one I haven't seen yet is: Death saves are secret, even from the GM. You have to trust your table, but by God does this increase the tension. Other than that, we use bonus action healing potions, full action to max. Flanking on hex grid has to be directly through the center. Silvery barbs, you can choose one half of the spell per casting.

You can use a bonus action to roll and heal the amount with a health potion or heal the total amount it would grant if you use an action. When you roll a critical hit, you do your full potential damage (each die + bonus) then you roll each die and add that amount! I love these as I’ve noticed it has made my players really celebrate (and dread) when they or the enemy crits, makes it a lot more exciting! And then potion rule makes it a lot more flexible and adds to the roleplay of buying and sharing resources

I do both of these as well.

​ * When rolling stats, reroll any 1s always. It's fun to play powerful characters, and I scale up campaign difficulty to match the juiced up stats. * No spell components. * No magic item attunement (in most campaigns) * Starting equipment is based on backstory - if there's a reason for your character to have a non-magic item, then you can have it (within reason) * Additional skill proficiencies are given out during character creation based on back story. * A 20 on any jump check is a QUANTUM LEAP... which provides no additional bonuses - it's just fun today.

I do crunchy crits where a nat 20 will auto hit (like RAW) and then you roll to hit again to see if you crit. To balance this out a nat 20 always does maximum damage even if it doesn't crit, and if you crit you do the maximum damage of a regular hit plus the additional dice you roll on a crit. So a 1d8+4 attack is always 12 damage on a nat 20 and is 1d8+12 damage on a crit instead of 2d8+4. What's really funny is that I scrapped these rules when playing with a brand new player in favor of not making things too complicated. First combat they crit a goblin only to roll snake eyes for damage and not take it out.

Some standard some weird.   1. Drinking a potion is a bonus action.  If you use an action you get max value.  Feeding it to someone is also an action.  2. Silvery barbs can only be had by 1 party member and if someone takes it I don't give out inspiration.  3. Players control allies in combat.  If my players start making friends the table turns into a wargame instead of a narrative.   4. Passive social, if your bonus to a social skill breaks +10 that is going to be the general demeanor people have towards you.  

- I start each session by giving each player an inspiration coin (gold coins I bought from Amazon). - A player can have a max of 3 inspiration coins. - Inspiration coins can be kept between sessions. - Inspiration coins can be turned in to re-roll one of their rolls, OR for me to re-roll one of MY rolls. That last bit has come in clutch when I was about to down a player with a crit. I don't fudge my rolls, so this is a good way to sort of reverse a roll after I declare whether it was a miss/hit/crit. Other than that: - Potion drinking is a bonus action; Administering is a full action. - Max health on leveling. - Bart the Shopkeeper has every item printed in official sources. - For unofficial sources, you have to find it, create it, or find someone who sells it.

For our table: Flanking is set to 3.5 rules and grants a +2 to hit. Crits you just double the roll on the dice not add another.

Healing potions as a bonus action Crits do max damage, then you roll. When you roll for HP, you can either take the average or roll your hit die twice and take the highe result. At level 4, you get a feat and the ASI. Features like indomitable that let you reroll a saving throw 1/long rest instead let you auto succeed 1/long rest.