D&D 5E A Collection of Minor House Rules

[SkidAce]

Exactly! This is *the* house rule for groups that believe D&D5 is easy mode. Who needs pages of targeted nerfs when this one rule does it all! Sharpshooter and GWM giving you sleepless nights due to their unbridled power? This itty bitty rule pretty much guarantees all on its lonesome that players will almost never opt for -5/+10, except against NPCs they are *supposed* to mow down like chaff. Best of all, we fix things to make absolutely sure that everyone who feel Champions suck are now absolutely right! Because, you know, critting on a 19 is no longer possible. Oh, and d12s are too cool a die to be so underutilized. Really, this is the best house rule of all. It's so good that we should call it Rule -1. Because it should take pride of place *before* Rule 0. Anyway, Ken

Great answer, thanks!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

-Rangers get hunter's mark benefits against favoured enemies. Does not stack with casted hunter's mark.

- a ranger may spend downtime to attune to another kind of land and stealth also benefits from the associated bonus.

-bonus to damage on ranged weapons only at point blank range which is 30 ft. (Maybe this restriction carries over to sneak attack damage. I see how I feel about that with my own rogue. Maybe there are different steps coming.)

-medicine can be used to increase healing at short or long rests. Maybe at long rests you may forfeit regenerating your own hit dice to increase the healing rate of others when you tend to them. At short rests they may regenerate another 1d4 hp or so.
- stats are rolled with 3d6 drop lowest+4 a higher minimum and average than 4d6 drop lowest but the maximum is limited to 16.

 

[fjw70]

Hit Dice healing replaced by 4 healing surges (HS = 1/4 of HP).

Melee weapons are done by category: Thrown weapons 1d6 (light, finesse, thrown), light 1H 1d8 (light, finesse), heavy 1H 1d10 (heavy), 2H 1d12 (heavy).

Using a weapon with the heavy property with two hands add +1 to damage.

 

[Horwath]

Humans dont get any ability bonuses.
They start with 2 feats, skill, common plus two languages.

All d20 rolls are d12+4 instead.
Or use d12 only but reduce all AC/DC by 4.

You get extra skills and languages equall to your int bonus(max 3).

Initiative is dex+int+wis.

Off hand attack from twf is part of attack action.

Improved dualwielder feat;
Requires dualwielder feat and extra attack; you can now make 2 offhand attacks. +1 extra AC.

Martial training feat: gain one fighting style, gain one weapon proficiency. +1 to str,dex or con.

Bonus feats at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th and 20th level.
They can be only flavor feats: all UA racial and skill feats and all feats not directly combat based.
I.e. no gwm pam sharpshooter crossbowmaster heavyarmor master resilient etc...


Sent from my SM-J320F using EN World mobile app

 

[fjw70]

The ability roll is dropped after rolling and the bonus is the ability score (I.e. If you roll a 15 for dex then your dex score is +2).

 

[snickersnax]

Intelligence: -1 skill, language or tool per negative point of intelligence ability score modifier. Makes a cost for intelligence as a dump stat

 

[JPicasso]

2-H Sword, Axe, or Maul can do 1d12 or 2d6, whatever the PC chooses when they make the attack. The difference in the weapons should be flavor, not mechanics.

 

[BenHomer]

1. A race that at character creation has +1 X, +2 Y to their stats can assign X to any Stat other than Y
2. The Warlock Pact of the Blade option allows you to reshape your blade into "improvised weapons" including certain objects which you will be proficient in. That includes things like a Paintbrush, a Lute, or a Schisel
3. Counterspell counts as a Valor Bard spell
4. Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights count as Wizards of their specialty class for purpose of multiclassing with the Wizard class. So if you have a Wizard 2 Arcane Trickster 3, you can pick illusion and Enchantment spells as if you were an Arcane Trickster 9
5. When procuring books of a given subject, and spending appropriate time performing an Investigation or other check that would rely on those books for it's sucess, you may roll a proficiency die appropriate to that of the authors proficiency bonus and add it to your own.
6. The Hobbled condition imposes a penalty to your movement of half of it
7. The bloodlust condition applies a penalty to your spellcasting that requires a concentration check of 10 every round you mean to cast or keep concentration on an existing spell
8. In addition, while bloodlusting, one cannot attack non leathally
9. Races that give players the ability to innately cast spells can also cast them as part of their spell casting feature if the spell is in their classes spell list
10. Spell learned by the Magic Initiate feat can be cast via any classes spell casting feature
11. Dwarves get advantage on perception checks when alcoholic excess gives them the poisoned condition
12. Planar races register as their race of origin for purposes of Favored Enemy. Aasimar as Celestial, Genasi as Elementals, Yuan-Ti as Aberrations and so forth
13. Starting at level 5,the moon druid needn't be familiar with a beast they mean to wildshape into
14. An Artíficer is a 1/2 Spellcaster, their mechanical companion is any combination of large Beasts or constructs whose combined CR is no greater than 1/3 the Artíficer level, and at level 13 they gain the Use Magical Device option
15. The Necromancer Wizard, or the Undying Warlock may instead of using Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Fey, conjure Shadow Beings and Conjure Undead, following the exact same rule only for the damned

 

[Kobold Stew]

Characters can take a tool proficiency in Rope -- revitalizing the "use rope" skill of olde.