D&D 5E What Houserules Do You Use?

[Stalker0]

I just have a few:

1) 4e bloodied rule: Players and monsters are bloodied at half hp. This is the only hp note people get about how hurt something is.
2) (Reliable) Certain concentration spells (mostly paladin/cleric defensive spells) are given a reliable tag. When making a concentration check on that spell due to damage taken, you automatically pass the roll.

I personally feel that the concentration rolls were great to reduce buff feasts. I think its also good to make certain strong spells (summons, banishment) more in line with fun play. But I don't like that a player can just lose their defensive spell due to damage (which they are going to take) and a bad concentration roll.

3) Removed the fireball from the wild sorcerer. No, I do not allow this class to TPK my party due to a random roll.

4) Monks get +1 ki point.

5) Sorcerors do not need any spellcasting focus period. They can burn hp to get small amount of GPs for the purpose of spell components (basically burning their blood instead of components). I allow many wizard spells onto the Sorceror list.

 

[Nebulous]

I just have a few:

1) 4e bloodied rule: Players and monsters are bloodied at half hp. This is the only hp note people get about how hurt something is.

oh yeah, i sometimes use bloodied too. That's one thing I miss about 4e, many powers queued off being at half hit points, so I like to use it with monsters sometimes. Players regularly ask "is it bloodied yet?" Having a reaction trigger at Bloodied, or a monster getting "meaner" until it is dead is fun to implement.

 

[Satyrn]

The big one is more than one background. Not everyone starts adventuring at 18, so I put in a rule for getting a second one if it fit the character. (Say, you're a street urchin, then you get a break and are apprenticed to a Wizard. That sort of thing.)

This has me curious.

When a player takes 2 backgrounds, do they get everything from both backgrounds (four skills, 2 features, etc), or do they just mix and match, taking some bits from background, the rest from the other?


I'm curious, partly because the second possibility wouldn't actually be a houserule.

But mostly, if its the first possibility, I'm wondering if there's anyone at your table with only one background

 

[MiraMels]

Our table uses defense rolls instead of AC, from that one Unearthed Arcana awhile back. Also, rapiers don't exist, and scimitars are non-light, finesse, d6/d8 versatile weapons. Any class that specifically got rapier proficiency instead gets scimitar proficiency.

The one Big Change, that we are still fine tuning, is alternate death and dying rules, the gist of which is that "stunned" replaces "unconscious" when you are at 0 hit points, allowing dying characters to still perceive their surroundings, and speak.

 

[Tormyr]

The big house rules I use are:
1. Matt Mercer's resurrection rules -> http://geekandsundry.com/use-critical-roles-resurrection-rules-in-your-own-campaign/
2. My falling damage rules -> http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1410

 

[Ed Laprade]

This has me curious.

When a player takes 2 backgrounds, do they get everything from both backgrounds (four skills, 2 features, etc), or do they just mix and match, taking some bits from background, the rest from the other?


I'm curious, partly because the second possibility wouldn't actually be a houserule.

But mostly, if its the first possibility, I'm wondering if there's anyone at your table with only one background

Its the first option. And no, now that you mention it, nobody has only one background.
Yes, its a bit OP, but a decent GM can compensate for it. And, at the time, there were only three of us playing. So the extra bits were mostly put in to make sure the characters had most things covered. Now that there are six players I have to be more careful about how I run things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

We do what others have already mentioned....max the first die for a crit and roll the additional doce. This way the attack does at least the max of a normal hit.

When a character drops and has to make death saves, we don't roll themeach round. Instead, we track how manythey need to make and then roll them once another PC reaches them to try and help. This keeps their status unknown so that a downed ally is not something easy to ignore (like a player saying "he's already made two death saves, so chances are he'll stabilize on his own").

Going to 0 HP grants a level of exhaustion.

Inspiration....this one's harder to define. I award it for good roleplaying pretty much along the lines of how it's described in the book, but also for bold or selfless play. Then I let the players decide how they use it....I leave it vague on purpose, but essentially, I let them bend the rules a bit. They can always default to granting advantage on a roll, but I give them leeway to really try and inspire some cinematic style action from them. It's actually made for some very memorable moments.

 

[cbwjm]

1) I created a talent system for my 5E game. Each level, a player can choose a talent from a list of a couple hundred that I made which let's them customize their character outside of being bound by race, class, and ASI choices. One example is 'Catch Your Breath' which allows a character to spend an Action in combat and spend Hit Dice up to one-half their maximum, but they must decide how many to roll ahead of time.

2) I ignore the fact that ranged weapons cannot knock a creature out when they would otherwise strike the deathblow. (More on this topic, I make players declare before the attack they will be attempting to knock a creature unconscious instead of kill it).

3) I stack levels of classes that have the extra attack feature, up to the lowest variant of extra attack between their classes. In example, fighter stacks with Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin for determining the level 5 extra attack feature, but you must be a full-fledged level 11 Fighter to get the third attack.

4) I make ASI character level based instead of class level based. My players really love this one, and 5E is so ridiculously easy to balance monsters to player capacity, who cares right?

5) Proficiency Dice instead of a flat bonus. (More on this one, I also allow for an 'Expert Attack' or 'Expert Defense.' The player can opt out of rolling their proficiency dice on attack rolls to add it to damage instead, or to add one-half of their proficiency result to AC for 1 round).

6) I require each character to make up a custom background (including associated skills, tools/languages, feature, and story). My group loves this of course, but I could definitely see how others might find it tedious or what have you.

That about wraps up all the biggies I can think of immediately - at least my favorite and consistent ones.

Your talent system sounds interesting and I would expect that that would allow for a lot of customisation of each character.

For the custom background requirement, what if someone wants to use one of the backgrounds in the book? Like, if I want to be a sage, would I have to create it or could I just use the sage background.

 

[CrimsonCarcharodon]

The big house rules I use are:
1. Matt Mercer's resurrection rules -> http://geekandsundry.com/use-critical-roles-resurrection-rules-in-your-own-campaign/
2. My falling damage rules -> http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1410

Those resurrection rules are pretty awesome. I'll have to print those out for my home games.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

I've given up on house rules. It's just too much work to balance and then rebalance things. Make a tweak here, and you have to make five tweaks elsewhere, that snowballs into more and more tweaks.

So I stopped working on my houserules. This is what I got up to by the time I abandoned it: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJNivZ4Ag