D&D 5E Very Unique Houserules?

[jgsugden]

There have been a lot of discussions about houserules in D&D recently. I'd like to hear about very unusual ones that you have for your table that make your table unlike other tables in a way that you enjoy.

My (first) contribution: Shadowfell Dread

When the PCs enter the Shadowfell I immediately pull out a Jenga tower and set it up right next to my DM screen. Then, while the PCs are in the Shadowfell, certain triggers will result in me instructing them to pull a piece from the Jenga tower. I do not tell them why the tower is there. I do not answer questions as to what happens if the tower falls directly. It just stands there.

There are some obvious things that cause a pull that they can spot and understand right away. For example, they have to pull from the tower if they roll a 1 on a d20. There are other things that are less obvious.

Some are story related. For example, if something malevolent watches them undetected I will have them pull from the tower. If they are in the Ravenloft domain of certain Dread Lords and they say the Dread Lord's name they have to pull from the tower. In one Dread Lord's Ravenloft domain there is a pull every 7 hours of game time because the Dread Lord is reliving a 7 hour period constantly. These are intended to provide hints to the group about the world around them that either advances the story or gives them reason to fear.

Some are truly arbitrary just to mess with their heads.

And if the tower falls? Bad things happen. If they're in a Ravenloft Domain there is a specific thing (or a table to roll on) that reveals the calamity. If they're in the Shadowfell I have a table of stuff I can roll on, but I usually have something in the game that I can draw upon that seems apprpriate. For example, in one session the PCs snuck past my version of the Headless Horseman. When the tower was knocked down, mid-combat, the Headless Horseman swooped down from the Sky on his Shadow Wyvern and joined the battle against the PCs with his Vorpal Scythe. In another the group was trying to travel across the Shadowfell to get to the Dread Domain that was reliving an event in the past so that they could learn what truly took place there in the real world (note: don't expect a traumatic supernatural forced reliing of an event to be historically accurate) when the tower fell. The Shadowfell twisted their path and sent them back to the start of their journey - or they thought it had. In truth the group had been split in two and surrounded by illusions as Shadowfell Doppelgangers replaced half the party in each group to try to lure them into disaster in a warped mindgame. And once it falls, we set the thing up again and start all over.

The goal of the tower is to create a more pronounced feeling of impending doom. With some groups it works great. With others - generally the ones that love chaos too much for their own good - it turns into a red button they kind of sorts want to see pushed just to see what will happen. It is worth a try with most groups, but will not be a success for every group.

(Credit where credit is due - using a Jenga tower in an RPG was something I stole from the Dread RPG, although I took it in a different direction by incorporating it into another RPG: Dread (role-playing game) - Wikipedia)

 

[jmartkdr2]

One dm I'm playing with goes absolutely nuts with bonus feats. We have a separate 'feat experience' track which gets about a third as many xp as the normal track. So as an 8th-level rogue, I have 5 bonus feats so far. More are coming.

Does it make us more powerful? Sure. No one's really getting the full ridiculous potential of a sentiel-polearm master sorlock or anything like that, but we're all pretty darn competent. And frankly, it's fun. We can just do cool stuff, lots of different cool stuff, and it almost always works - if it's the right cool thing to be doing against the very crafty and powerful enemies we face on a regular basis.

 

[Fanaelialae]

For a couple campaigns back in the day we were down to just 3 guys in the group (sometimes only 2, including the DM). So what we did was allow everyone to take a secondary class that automatically advanced at half the rate of the first.

I think we got all the starting proficiencies from both classes, but you used the hit die of your primary class. (There might have been an option to substitute the HD from the secondary class on even levels, I can't recall.) You'd gain features based on the respective level of each class. Basically, a lower powered version of the old gestalt rules.

It worked surprisingly well. It granted a considerable degree of much needed breadth without contributing a disruptive amount of depth.

 

[TwoSix]

My flanking rule: If you're flanking, add a 1d3 to the roll. If you hit, AND the 1d3 rolled a 3, the hit is a crit.

My current 5e game doesn't have classes. In addition to race and background, every character starts with 2 feats, and proficiency in 2 skill and 2 saves (the saves are the character's highest and lowest stat). Besides that, they get 1 feat every level, which they can spend on a list of normal and homebrewed feats I give them OR negotiate for a special power that fits their character that's around the power level of a feat.

 

[Maxperson]

My flanking rule: If you're flanking, add a 1d3 to the roll. If you hit, AND the 1d3 rolled a 3, the hit is a crit.

My current 5e game doesn't have classes. In addition to race and background, every character starts with 2 feats, and proficiency in 2 skill and 2 saves (the saves are the character's highest and lowest stat). Besides that, they get 1 feat every level, which they can spend on a list of normal and homebrewed feats I give them OR negotiate for a special power that fits their character that's around the power level of a feat.

That sounds like a very interesting and fun game.

 

[TwoSix]

That sounds like a very interesting and fun game.

There was definitely some initial hesitance. We're three levels in at this point, though, and everyone has really started to embrace the concept. One character formed a bond with a fire spirit early on and has leaned hard into that, gaining fire resistance and bunch of fire magic. Another started with a telekinetic feat and found a sun blade, and has merged that to make themselves into a kind of Jedi. It's been pretty fun to watch.

 

[Maxperson]

There was definitely some initial hesitance. We're three levels in at this point, though, and everyone has really started to embrace the concept. One character formed a bond with a fire spirit early on and has leaned hard into that, gaining fire resistance and bunch of fire magic. Another started with a telekinetic feat and found a sun blade, and has merged that to make themselves into a kind of Jedi. It's been pretty fun to watch.

I've been trying to figure out a way to play D&D classless for a long time, but I just don't have the time to put in to make one that works.

 

[billd91]

I don't use any of these but one 1e AD&D game used some house rules I've never really seen anywhere else.

1) Stats were rolled via 4d6 drop lowest, but if you rolled 4 of a kind, you kept all 4 dice. That led to one character with a strength of 20 - so he crafted the idea that he was an adolescent stone giant thanks to that inspiring him.

2) The DM used critical hits - roll natural 20 or 5 higher than what you needed to hit and it was a crit. He then had people roll on the Rolemaster crit tables. Each point of AC below 10 caused by armor (not magical bonuses) reduced the roll on the crit table by 5%. Those tables were harsh and, boy, you sure learned to wear the heaviest armor you could justify.

3) The DM was a disembodied NPC who started at 1st level and could be awarded XPs by the players. Any player who wanted to could "attack the DM" and, if they killed him, that was the end of the current campaign. Other players could choose to step in and intercede and deflect the blow. And higher levels would net the DM more hit points. But, honestly, I'm not really sure what good this rule ever did except give the players a veto of the campaign after it started. It was certainly quirky - and kind of fitting with 1e sensibilities.

 

[ichabod]

I've been trying to figure out a way to play D&D classless for a long time, but I just don't have the time to put in to make one that works.

I saw this Adventurer class a long time ago. I have long thought about doing something with it that maybe wasn't classless, but less classed. My latest idea was to have the feats cost points, and be split into combat, skill, magic. Each class gets gets three points each for two of those areas, and there would be a fourth class that gets 2 points each for all three.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I've created a list of purchasable equipment that have extended rules (like how magic items do, but non-magical) AND my magic items level-up with your character, unlocking more powers. Magic Items are also rarer and start doling out at higher levels than standard. I'm still working on it, but I never liked equipment in D&D.