D&D 5E What 5e rule/option/class/item etc. do you regret allowing into your game

[Caliban]

It was a published adventure, and there weren't any magic hand crossbows in it. I think that's true of almost every published adventure for 5E.

For a DM to include a magical hand crossbow in their adventure, they would need to think of a reason why an enemy would have one (or why someone in the past would leave one lying around). Most DMs tend to not think about powerful NPCs who have hand crossbows, for whatever reason, unless there are a ton of Drow in the campaign.

Well, as I said, this character is in Adventure League. One of the things you can do in Adventure League is trade magic items. This character found a +2 Greataxe and traded it for the Opal of the Ild Rune. He then used the Rune on his hand crossbow, so it is now a magical hand crossbow that deals +1d6 fire damage on a hit.

Even without that, some of the rewards in the modules are "magic item of your choice, of a certain rarity". Eventually you will end up with a magic weapon of your choice.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Ahh, so they're ignoring the rules for two-weapon fighting because the crossbow expert feat doesn't specifically say melee weapon. Understood - thank you =)

No, they're following the actual interpretation presented by Jeremy Crawford in a Sage Advice column:

Does Crossbow Expert let you fire a hand crossbow and then fire it again as a bonus action? It does! Take a look at the feat’s third benefit. It says you can attack with a hand crossbow as a bonus action when you use the Attack action to attack with a one-handed weapon. A hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon, so it can, indeed, be used for both attacks, assuming you have a hand free to load the hand crossbow between the two attacks.

It was after that article -- though not for that ruling alone -- that I decided that Sage Advice for 5e was not worth reading or following.

 

[Inchoroi]

Weapon of Warning. Anything that ignores surprise, really. That bothers the out of me.

 

[Xaelvaen]

No, they're following the actual interpretation presented by Jeremy Crawford in a Sage Advice column:

Yeah, earlier in this post I pointed out I don't contest the legality of it, merely the validity of it being legal, or the outright absurdity of it.

It was after that article -- though not for that ruling alone -- that I decided that Sage Advice for 5e was not worth reading or following.

Most of them end up being fairly in line with what we do for our House Rulings, but yes - with that ruling in mind, I might have to ignore some of Mr. Crawford's rulings myself. (Thanks for the link, by the by).

 

[Bacon Bits]

I'm actually at this issue right now, specifically with Dragonborn. They were never in Greyhawk before and the question is what to do with them :

1. Ban them, never in before, why start now ;

2. Retcon them in from the beginning, fully integrated;

3. Have Dragonborn be from a different part of Oerth such as Hepmonaland.

4. Have Dragonborn come through a Rift from a completely different world.

I'm partial to 4 because I can integrate it into the start of the campaign and also link it to further adventures.

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I would ban them. I restricted players to one of the original races: human, elf (high or wood), dwarf, halfling, gnome, half-elf, half-orc. No tieflings, no drow, no dragonborn. Those are not PC races in the Flanaess.

If I were to introduce dragonborn, yeah, I'd say they were from Hepmonoland or the Amedo Jungle on the southern shore of the Azure Sea. Alternately, from the lands beyond the Dry Steppes or the Sea of Dust.



As far as things to look out for, there's a few things that we found to disbalance the party:

1. The -5/+10 mechanic on Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. My changes are:

Great Weapon Master: Instead of -5/+10, when attacking with a heavy melee weapon, the player may roll an extra 1d6 damage against creatures that are size Large and larger.

Sharpshooter: Instead of -5/+10, your ranged weapon attacks gain a new range increment: Extreme range. The extreme range of a weapon is equal to double the long range. Attacks made against targets at long range have disadvantage.

Crossbow Expertise and Polearm Master are pretty good, but not as abusive without -5/+10.

2. Warlocks can be abusive. Hex + Agonizing Blast + Eldritch Blast is a large amount of damage with the "each bolt gets the bonus damage" ruling. Additionally, Devil's Sight + Darkness can be kind of silly and game-warping.

3. Moon Druids can be too powerful at early levels due to extreme durability, but also too weak or very boring at higher levels. They're soft banned at our table (that is, you can play one if you're not going to try to break it). Polymorph is similarly pretty ridiculous due to how durable it makes a PC. Some of our DMs have banned that.

4. Simulacrum is still a pretty stupid spell. It's simultaneously extremely powerful, and not at all worth it for the investment.

5. Bless is pretty nuts, particularly with advantage and -5/+10, and it's also very boring for a cleric due to concentration rules because they're encouraged to cast it every combat. We've considered changing it to basically the 2e form: +1 on attacks and saves vs fear, 6 round duration, all visible allied targets within 50 ft, no concentration.

6. Counterspell is... a bit sketchy. It's not been a problem yet due to the combats we've had, but I can absolutely see why some have changed it to only counter spells without a die roll if the spell is of lower spell level (or sometimes 2 levels lower).

 

[guachi]

I recall giving out a Flametongue sword with the slight hindrance that the command word to ignite it must be shouted. The (normally extremely taciturn) player who got it, shouted the command word with such relish and gusto each and every time he drew it that to this day, some 15 years later, players will still yell out the command word (usually at wholly inappropriate times) just to get laugh.

At the end of the day, this is why we play RPGs.

 

[Phasestar]

Only thing I would suggest from a balance standpoint rather than setting customization, is to take a look a the "Sane Magic Item Prices" PDF as some of the default pricing really doesn't make a lot of sense and this will save you the work of figuring out what's out of whack yourself. Also, PHB+1 does work pretty well as a rule to avoid too much power gaming, but 5e is already much better about that than most previous versions.

 

[Klaudius Rex]

Wall of Stone.

My player (a dwarf druid) wanted to cast the wall of stone in the air and have the whole stone wall fall down on top of a beholder for ungodly amounts of damage.

Like an idiot, i allowed it.

The campaign is over now, and this has always bothered me because i never looked the spell up for myself, just kinda trusting the player.

The spell shouldn't have worked that way. The spell clearly states that it has to be attached to something or "merge with and be solidly supported by existing stone." So i cannot even be an unfinished bridge ready to fall down or anything either.

I thought he found a chink the game. i worried that he would spam that spell for the rest of the session. Fortunately, he dropped out due to unrelated personal reasons.

The point is: I trusted him to know what the hell he is doing.

And he didn't.

The beholder died.

 

[Croesus]

Wall of Stone.

My player (a dwarf druid) wanted to cast the wall of stone in the air and have the whole stone wall fall down on top of a beholder for ungodly amounts of damage.

Like an idiot, i allowed it.

The campaign is over now, and this has always bothered me because i never looked the spell up for myself, just kinda trusting the player.

The spell shouldn't have worked that way. The spell clearly states that it has to be attached to something or "merge with and be solidly supported by existing stone." So i cannot even be an unfinished bridge ready to fall down or anything either.

I thought he found a chink the game. i worried that he would spam that spell for the rest of the session. Fortunately, he dropped out due to unrelated personal reasons.

The point is: I trusted him to know what the hell he is doing.

And he didn't.

The beholder died.

While I like when players get creative, I'm leery of anything that seems like an auto-win. A good rule of thumb in such situations is that the spell can do no more than typical damage for a spell of the same level. For example, wall of stone is 5th level. A fireball cast at 5th level does 12d6, save for half. So even if the wall spell could have been cast in the air, the potential damage is limited.

Along the same lines, whenever a player suggests using polymorph to auto-kill something, limit it to a max of 10d6, save for half (fireball at 4th level). So no more putting the polymorphed creature into a heavy, thick, locked steel box and arguing that it dies when it expands.

This rule of thumb really helps limit some of the shenanigans players indulge in, while still allowing them to come up with creative ideas.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, as I said, this character is in Adventure League. One of the things you can do in Adventure League is trade magic items. This character found a +2 Greataxe and traded it for the Opal of the Ild Rune. He then used the Rune on his hand crossbow, so it is now a magical hand crossbow that deals +1d6 fire damage on a hit.

Even without that, some of the rewards in the modules are "magic item of your choice, of a certain rarity". Eventually you will end up with a magic weapon of your choice.

Interesting. I never would have thought of that possibility. Following that logic, the availability of magic hand crossbows would only be a balancing factor in home games - where the DM has a lot more leeway to balance things with house rules anyway.