D&D 5E Fun & Engaging House Rules

Danielle Van Pelt said:

Hey!

I'm a relatively new DM and am interested in hearing about other DM's house rules. I've taken a few from some of my favorite streams and such but would love to hear some of y'alls favorite, whether it was your idea or not. Thanks and happy RPing!

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• Implement a universal degrees of success system on all skill checks wherein succeeds / fails by 5+ is interpreted by the DM to be an especially great success or failure.
• Natural 1 is auto-fail on any roll. Natural 20 is auto-success on any roll.
• Implement a simplified encumbrance system using encumbrance points or item slots, similarly to how many video games have inventory screens where potions take up 1 slot, weapons 2-4 slots, armor 6 slots, etc.
• Side grouped/clustered initiative
• Include more Intelligence, Charisma, and Strength saves. INT applies to... madness, altering memory, psychic winds, quickly navigating a maze, failing to read a scroll correctly, brain eaten, psionics, deducing a command word. CHA applies to... Abyssal corruption, banishment, forced teleporting/planeshifting, despair & emotional manipulation, magical imprisonment, turning people against you, unwilling polymorphing, possession, avoid detection undercover (borrowed from Hoard of the Dragon Queen). STR applies to... – forced movement, prone, caught in whirlwind / whirlpool, disarmed, reactively tearing free of vines / tentacles / restraints.
• Long resting in un-safe places is generally impossible (most dungeons) or challenging & requires a group "camp check" (wilderness).
• If campaign involves travel & random encounters as a major feature which drew players in, strongly consider removing/altering rope trick and similar "effortless rest" spells.
• Use minion groups when dealing with large groups of monsters (esp. in a theater-of-the-mind game)...basically take a monster (e.g. an orc), give it 1 HD worth of hp (so 7 (1d8+3) instead of 15(2d8+6)), multiply that by number of monsters to create a hit point pool, use Mob Attacks rule from DMG instead of rolling to hit, and give minion group critical hit vulnerability.
• Use a homebrew "elite" template for boss monsters leading other monsters focused on boosting survivability without sacrificing fun.
• Use modified trap system emphasizing trigger-type... Unearthed Arcana/XGtE is a decent start, but be prepared to do some design work as a DM when including traps.
• Make counterspelling less predictable & more engaging by adding interesting side effects. Allow 5th-level sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards (classes who'd get access to counterspell on class spell list) to "creatively counterspell" arcane spells, e.g. using watery sphere to negate a fire bolt.
• Grant fighters ability to 1/turn Shove for free as part of an attack at 2nd-level.
• Grant rogues the ability to decipher script at 2nd-level, recognizing any written language and puzzling out the gist given time.

Stalker0 said:

Failed death saving throws don’t reset until you take a short rest. - makes it a little less whack a mole.

All raise dead type spell requires “the power of plot”. Aka it’s a lot more involved than just casting a spell. - I like death to be permanent in my games unless the return is awesome and epic.

Sorcerers get access to all wizard spells, unless there is an abuse with metamagic I can spot. All metamagic can stack with itself. - sorcs felt needlessly restricted to me.

Wild sorc table, remove the fireball yourself effect. - I don’t mind most of the craziness of a wild sorc, but I am not ok with them blowing away party members on a bad roll. Further, there is a decent chance that at some point most low level wild sorcs fireball themselves to death...which is a bit too much for my taste.

Monks gain +1 ki. I thought monks were a tiny bit weak, and this helped make them more competitive.

Many defensive concentration spells gain the “reliable” keyword. You auto pass a concentration check for taking damage with those spells. - I like the balancing of concentration but didn’t like that melee characters with buff had a good chance to lose them (also the fact that they had to make a lot of coentrafion checks).

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