D&D 5E How long til you modified 5e?

[Nevvur]

Once you started DMing 5e, how long was it before you started modifying the base game?

The question is intended to exclude entire homebrew settings, rulings on nebulous systems (e.g. stealth), and optional systems proposed in the DMG and other official sources.

It includes homebrew classes/subclasses, races, monsters, spells, feats, and so on. However, I am mostly interested in rule tweaks, like action economy, crit hit/fumble tables, rest rules, etc.

 

[Shiroiken]

I would like to throw out there "immediately." 5E is great for customization, really being meant to be modified for each group. Major changes (like my own revised Ranger) took longer to implement.

 

[Greg K]

I have not run 5e, but I started to immediately make changes upon getting the Basic Rules and SRD. First, I noted things that I wanted to change or I felt were missing. Then, to save time and effort for things that didn't involve simply banning items, adding a new skill, or altering class proficiencies, I began looking for material that I liked from others to borrow.

 

[Satyrn]

I'm gonna answer never.

I don't think making new monsters counts as modifying, and that's all I've done.

 

[Jer]

Now hold on - the question at the top is "how long til you house ruled?" when using D&D 5e, but the question you're asking is "how long until you modified the base game". Those are different questions - I house ruled 5e the first time I ran it because situations came up that aren't explicit in the rules and so we provided a ruling and moved on. Every session I've run since has something like that in it (because I run 5e for kids, and kids are incredibly creative because they aren't constrained by assumptions about previous editions yet).

But so far the only alteration that I've made to the base game rules beyond that is to let the ranger's pet wolf actually be an effective companion in combat (because hoo-boy that was a set of rules that needed more playtesting). And that took a few sessions for him to get to the level where we realized how terrible those rules were.

(OTOH - who knows how many accidental alterations I've made because I'm imposing remembered rules from a half-dozen previous editions onto the new edition. I just realized in the past month that there are some things about 13th age sorcerers that I've been playing wrong because I carried over flawed assumptions about their D&D 3e and 4e counterparts into the game. There could be tons of things like that that I'm doing that none of the kids are calling me on because they don't know the rules any better than I do at the moment...)

 

[Jester David]

I started thinking house rules for resting by the moment the DMG came out and was working on new subclasses well before then.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think by the definition used here, never. But, by a broader definition, immediately. I make small tweaks to systems all the time, but I keep it all as low-impact as possible, to the point where many of my tweaks might be better described as rulings than house rules.

 

[Satyrn]

I feel like the OP missed a golden opportunity for a pun.

That last option in the poll should've been labeled "Nevvur!"

 

[Greg K]

I started thinking house rules for resting by the moment the DMG came out and was working on new subclasses well before then.

Several things borrowed for my house rules are from 5MWD.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I knew that the time frame for the poll was going to be in days/weeks/months!

I choose "less than a month", but honestly it was "less than the first session of about 3 hours". If you want to get technical, I remember looking at the time and it had been almost exactly 15 minutes since I said "OK, all of you are walking on a road with your destination being a small place called Phandelver".

What was it? "Ok, you guys are injured, and it's night. I guess we look up how much you heal per night. [flip flip flip]. Er...huh. That's...that's...generous? Says you heal EVERYTHING. POOF! You wake up in the morning with not a scratch on you! [looks of disbelief followed by chuckles, giggling and laughs]. All right. Lets do it by the book for right now. But tomorrow night we're doing healing different".

...and thus, my very first 'house rule' for 5e. Natural healing.

(PS: The rule I came up with on the fly was "Half your HD, round up, you get 'for free' in the morning, assuming a perfect sleep. Dice minimums/maximums will be based on situational modifiers like danger, clean rags, someone with Medicine skill, etc").

^_^

Paul L. Ming