ParanoydStyle
Peace Among Worlds
Hey guys, what's up, these are my house rules. I put "House" in quotes because actually getting to DM at my house as opposed to a noisy FLGS seems to be a ing impossibility. This isn't all of them--there are rules I wrote for metamagic for Wizards that I don't feel comfortable posting because I'm not 100% sure they make sense, and there are also some individual, primarily high-level spells that I increased the power of (9th Level True Polymorph for instance was really not worthy of the name, falling way, way, way short of the 6th (IIRC) Level 3.X Spell Polymorph Any Object) that I'm not bothering to list here.
A few of these aren't "house rules I came up with" and are just "options in the DMG I'm electing to use" but they form a cohesive whole.
So anyway, those are the house rules I am currently using in 5E. What do you think, sirs?
A few of these aren't "house rules I came up with" and are just "options in the DMG I'm electing to use" but they form a cohesive whole.
- All save DCs are 2 points higher across the board. In other words, I changed the constant used to determine Save DCs from 8 to 10. I had a few reasons for this one. One, for the same reason that it's annoying to whiff constantly (a problem 5E did a great job of not having), it is annoying as a player when something saves against one of your spells, and it's also annoying as a DM (in this edition! back when Save or Die was a stridently a thing, it could be terrifying when your PCs DIDN'T make a save) when your party is largely unfazed by a powerful enemy/trap/what-have-you because most or all of them made their saves. With the range of Save DCs where they are, there's usually a 25-50% chance that the naked die roll will beat the save DC, which makes actual saving throw bonuses feel somewhat irrelevant. Another reason is that while "8" as a constant I'm sure wasn't chosen arbitrarily, it FEELS arbitrary as opposed to 10. And finally, 10 is the constant used to perform similar calculations, such as Passive Perception, so using 10 as the constant for save DCs feels more internally consistent. TBC this rule works exactly the same players and monsters exactly the same, so it doesn't make the game easier or harder, it just decreases everyone's chance of making a saving throw by about 10%.
- Critical Failure. It's a pet peeve of mine how few players and DMs will even ACKNOWLEDGE that treating a Natural 1 any different than a regular failure is a HOUSE RULE they are imposing on the game. It's not in any of the rulebooks anywhere. Correct me if I'm wrong. It may be in the DMG somewhere as an optional rule. I'm 99% sure it's not mentioned ANYWHERE in the Player's Handbook. The DMs that favor crit fails also seem to be the ones who aren't able to grok that the fumble rule makes it WORSE to have MORE ATTACKS because the higher level combatant you are and the more attacks you get, the more 5% chances you have to stab yourself in the foot, or worse. ANYWAY, at my table, a natural 1 for a PC is just a regular failure, whereas a natural 1 for an NPC/monster is a potential disaster/friendly fire accident/fall throat first on your sword/etcetera. When I tell people that they tend to get the impression that I'm a soft touch, but the truth is I'm a fairly ruthless killer DM, I don't pull punches, I don't fudge often, and most importantly, my dice luck is horrifyingly good when DMing (and still abnormally good when PCing). Some people actually like to have a 5% chance of embarrassing and/or harming themselves whenever they attempt an action (it's not even like in 3.5 where you had the roll to confirm a critical failure). Considering that this leads to yakkety sax at best and nonsensical PC death at worst, I cannot understand why the people who like (PC) critical fails like them.
- Spell Resistance/Magic Resistance. The magic resistance trait gives monsters advantage on saving throws versus spells, but does not in any way protect them from spells that make attack rolls rather than allowing for a save. So I have simply tacked on to that trait "Furthermore, this creature receives +2 to its AC versus spell attacks." A PC with Spell Resistance would receive the same benefit obviously.
- That Doesn't HAVE A Weakpoint. Rogues in 3.5 were disastrous: nearly half of monster types were immune to sneak attack, which made Rogues virtually worthless in half of combats, or more if you happened to be playing, say, an undead themed campaign. Additionally, fighters types already small in the pants compared to casting classes, were also even less useful in fights against things they couldn't critical. Especially if their character was spec'd around critical hits. So for the most part, 5E's "everything can be critically hit, sneak attack applies to everything" rule suits me just fine. I want to make an exemption for oozes and elementals, however. I can rationalize a rogue's sneak attack finding a weak point or a character scoring a critical on pretty much every other monster type, even constructs, plants, and machines, but it's too much for me to imagine a gelatinous cube taking more damage for getting stabbed in the back, likewise a fire elemental doesn't have any internal organs or other weak points: it is made entirely of FIRE!
- Identify Isn't Pointless. Definitely using the option on page 136 of the DMG called More Difficult Identification, electing the "requires the identify spell" option. Because honestly, if any schmuck can ID a magic item just by spending an hour with it, identify shouldn't be in the game. Since it is in the game, let's have it matter rather than being completely superfluos.
So anyway, those are the house rules I am currently using in 5E. What do you think, sirs?
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