D&D 5E House Rules That Make The Game Better

[phantomK9]

- Turning the personality traits and inspiration mechanic into more of a FATE aspects sort of thing, whereby you have a pool of inspiration points that you can spend by invoking your traits, while the DM can give you more points by compelling those same traits. I haven't worked on it in any great detail, though.

We have actually implemented this in our current game and it works fairly well.
You store up the inspiration points, earning them through "compelling" your personality traits, and then spend a point whenever you like, usually if your roll is bad.

It has worked really well for the most part. Still doesn't help if both dice roll low....I've rolled double 2's on more than one occasion...but it feels more fun.

 

[Mercule]

- Turning the personality traits and inspiration mechanic into more of a FATE aspects sort of thing, whereby you have a pool of inspiration points that you can spend by invoking your traits, while the DM can give you more points by compelling those same traits. I haven't worked on it in any great detail, though.

Been tempted to head this way, myself. I haven't played Fate, but was very impressed by several things in the system, including aspects.

For inspiration, I think what I'm tempted to do is give out inspiration token(s) to each player, but players can't use them for their own characters. When another character takes an action in line with their personality (bonds, flaws, etc), especially one that is less optimal for that PC (ie, they're taking an extra risk or penalty to match their character), someone can give them advantage with one of the tokens.

I cannot recommend this enough. I went out and bought some special d20s for this. If you have Inspiration, the die sits in front of you. If you don't have Inspiration, I have a visible reminder that I should hand it out.

Players also roll their designated Inspiration die when spending Inspiration, whether for their own Advantage or NPC Disadvantage. I don't think they've realized the subtle use for being able to pull certain rolls out from behind the screen, though.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

It is officially encouraged, yes, and it's downright necessary under many circumstances, but 'easy' isn't quite the right word, IMHO.

Yeah, not honest, at all, your schtick is so old: undermining 5th Ed, please go to a 4th Ed message-board, as you are a fan, it would be much more productive, and less creepy.

 

[Wulfgar76]

I have implemented several house rules, but two have proven their worth time and time again:

1. Death saves are gone. Death occurs at -(10+level) hit points. Returning to consciousness (+ hit points) from negative HP results in a level of exhaustion (cumulative).

2. Long rests do not restore any hit points, but restore all Hit Dice.

 

[Nebulous]

Heh. I have my own houserule initiative system, which I think is a vast improvement and that I'll be using in most campaigns moving forward--but it's almost the exact opposite of yours. It increases randomness and makes tactical coordination harder. I find it leads to more exciting and more dynamic combats.

But to each his/her own, as they say.

Beyond that? I don't think I have any major house rules as of yet. Though I have a few I'm contemplating...

what is your initiative system? I don't really care for the default anymore.

 

[Nebulous]

On a crit, we maximize the first die, but roll the second die. Too many times players (or me) were rolling 3 points of damage on a crit, it was a total waste of a 20.

 

[Moorcrys]

On a crit, we maximize the first die, but roll the second die. Too many times players (or me) were rolling 3 points of damage on a crit, it was a total waste of a 20.

That's a great idea. Yoink.

 

[pukunui]

We have actually implemented this in our current game and it works fairly well.
You store up the inspiration points, earning them through "compelling" your personality traits, and then spend a point whenever you like, usually if your roll is bad.

Do you require the players can only spend their points by "invoking" their traits as well? That would make it the most like FATE.

 

[phantomK9]

On a crit, we maximize the first die, but roll the second die. Too many times players (or me) were rolling 3 points of damage on a crit, it was a total waste of a 20.

I've seen several people post this rule and I'm definitely going to steal this one for when I run a game.


...if I don't get rid of random damage altogether that is....

 

[phantomK9]

Do you require the players can only spend their points by "invoking" their traits as well? That would make it the most like FATE.

The DM for the game hasn't chosen to do that. We discussed that possibility, but I think he wants to stick to RAW as much as possible. Also, it is nice to have a pool of points to get a reroll whenever because the die is soooo swingy...especially for me.

Although getting inspiration in the way you describe is something I'm looking at implementing when I eventually run a game. I've also thought about not even worrying about messing with Inspiration Points at all and just giving automatic advantage when you are able to use your traits in your favor, but the opposition gets automatic advantage (or you get automatic disadvantage) when they are able to use your traits against you.

Honestly, the mechanics for handing out Advantage/Inspiration are not what concern me the most but the fact that 85% of the time when I use inspiration for advantage I end up roll two 2's or two 5's or some crap like that. So I'm thinking about ways in which to mitigate that fiasco.