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

[Grainger]

When someone in the group makes an ability check (including skill checks), I make them choose one - and only one - PC to do it. This represents the party's best attempt to do that thing, and if that roll fails, then none of them are going to make it. So, for example, if a Perception check is being made to notice something, they only get one chance. Otherwise, with one attempt per PC (and NPC with the party), they're going to succeed nearly all the time; someone's usually going to make the roll, and it renders the point of rolling pointless IMO. This is particularly bad with NPCs who are trying to deceive the party - someone's always going to make their Insight check if everyone gets to roll. With trivial things, I don't make them roll anyway - this is only for things that are reasonably difficult to do.

That said (and this is more of a good DMing trick, but it relates to the above house rule), I wouldn't put an obstacle in their way that they had to get through in order for the adventure to continue, and allow only one way to get past it. For example, I wouldn't put a locked door in their way, but only allow a Strength check to break it down (unless it was a side area that isn't essential to visit). I'd also allow them to come up with other ways to get through it, or provide alternative routes.

I might add that this house rule stops the classic situation where the burly fighter can't break a door down, but the weedy wizard does it with ease. That kind of thing is funny when it happens occasionally, but it happens too often if we just let everyone try at every task.

 

[Uller]

For crits we do max damage plus one damge die. It keeps the dice rolling down and gives d12 weapons a reason for being.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Ability Scores are generated as: roll 2d8, drop the lower result, + 7, six times, arrange as desired.

Starting HP = Constitution score + 1 HD (from the 1st playtest packet).

Cold Iron is back.

Saving Throws: rolling a 1 is an auto-failure, rolling a 20 is auto-success.

Toying with giving characters 1/2 Proficiency bonus to non-proficient saving throws.

Expanded weapons (1d12 and 2d6 piercing weapons, 1d8 slashing, finesse weapon, etc).

 

[Warmaster Horus]

When someone in the group makes an ability check (including skill checks), I make them choose one - and only one - PC to do it. This represents the party's best attempt to do that thing, and if that roll fails, then none of them are going to make it. So, for example, if a Perception check is being made to notice something, they only get one chance. Otherwise, with one attempt per PC (and NPC with the party), they're going to succeed nearly all the time; someone's usually going to make the roll, and it renders the point of rolling pointless IMO. This is particularly bad with NPCs who are trying to deceive the party - someone's always going to make their Insight check if everyone gets to roll. With trivial things, I don't make them roll anyway - this is only for things that are reasonably difficult to do.

That said (and this is more of a good DMing trick, but it relates to the above house rule), I wouldn't put an obstacle in their way that they had to get through in order for the adventure to continue, and allow only one way to get past it. For example, I wouldn't put a locked door in their way, but only allow a Strength check to break it down (unless it was a side area that isn't essential to visit). I'd also allow them to come up with other ways to get through it, or provide alternative routes.

I might add that this house rule stops the classic situation where the burly fighter can't break a door down, but the weedy wizard does it with ease. That kind of thing is funny when it happens occasionally, but it happens too often if we just let everyone try at every task.

I do it similarly. However I do allow the one PC making the effort to be assisted by another PC _IF_ that PC possesses the skill in question and is in a position (and agrees) to assist. Per the standard Help action, this provides advantage to the roll.

 

[Grainger]

I do it similarly. However I do allow the one PC making the effort to be assisted by another PC _IF_ that PC possesses the skill in question and is in a position (and agrees) to assist. Per the standard Help action, this provides advantage to the roll.

Yes, I do that as well. Also, if they fail, but can think of a different way to try the task (by increasing their chances - e.g. fetching an appropriate tool), I let them re-try. I wouldn't let them milk this though (e.g. deliberately try a daft method first, then try again using a sensible approach, to get an extra try).

 

[delericho]

I try to avoid using too many house rules. Still, I have a couple:

- No alignments. Yeah, they don't have any mechanical effect in 5e, but IMO that makes them worse; either they should exist and mean something or they shouldn't exist.
- No encumbrance.
- Instead of granting inspiration, each player is instead given some Inspiration tokens at the start of the session (3 for a 3-hour session; more for longer games). These can be spent before any d20 roll in exactly the same way Inspiration is used currently.

The reason this works for me is that I've found I'm just really bad at remembering to grant Inspiration. So, rather than not having it appear in the game at all, we use this. (Obviously, YMMV. As I said, it works for me. )

 

[Grainger]

I try to avoid using too many house rules. Still, I have a couple:

- No alignments. Yeah, they don't have any mechanical effect in 5e, but IMO that makes them worse; either they should exist and mean something or they shouldn't exist.
- No encumbrance.
- Instead of granting inspiration, each player is instead given some Inspiration tokens at the start of the session (3 for a 3-hour session; more for longer games). These can be spent before any d20 roll in exactly the same way Inspiration is used currently.

The reason this works for me is that I've found I'm just really bad at remembering to grant Inspiration. So, rather than not having it appear in the game at all, we use this. (Obviously, YMMV. As I said, it works for me. )

I do the first two of these, and I might instigate the third, too. I thought inspiration was rare based on the PHB (or was it the basic rules?) but in the DMG, it says you should be giving it out about once a session per character! I usually forget, so I might use your solution, but I might just give out one token per session.

 

[delericho]

I do the first two of these, and I might instigate the third, too. I thought inspiration was rare based on the PHB (or was it the basic rules?) but in the DMG, it says you should be giving it out about once a session per character!

Really? I haven't read the DMG yet, so wasn't aware of that!

I usually forget, so I might use your solution, but I might just give out one token per session.

To be honest, I don't think "once per session" is a helpful guideline - I've playing in sessions ranging from 50 minutes to 8 hours in length. Fortunately, one of the good things about Inspiration is that it's really easy to "season to taste" with it - if you like the mechanic then give out more; if you don't, don't.

 

[CapnZapp]

I made up a list of feats I didn't think anyone would take, and then let my players choose one such feat at level 1.

This way, we get characters with Actor or Linguist etc in the game.

 

[keterys]

I made up a list of feats I didn't think anyone would take, and then let my players choose one such feat at level 1.

This way, we get characters with Actor or Linguist etc in the game.

Well, now you have to give the list, man!

I had some folks that loved rolling hp that made me ponder doing a "You roll hp, but it's every long rest" thing. Cause I'm opposed to really permanent things on a character coming down to who happened to be slightly (un)lucky, but people just having a good or bad day? Yeah, that happens, that's fine Also would open up the possibility of further expansion, like a downtime activity to really rest up that let you start at maximized hp.