D&D 5E What variant rules should I add to my new campaign?

[Retreater]

My group will be starting a new campaign in a few weeks. I'm looking for ways to enrich the tactical experience (as some of the players quite enjoyed 4e).
What official variant rules have you had success in adding to the game to make 5e a little more robust?

 

[5ekyu]

My group will be starting a new campaign in a few weeks. I'm looking for ways to enrich the tactical experience (as some of the players quite enjoyed 4e).
What official variant rules have you had success in adding to the game to make 5e a little more robust?

Actual play result in an over year long 5e game...

1 proficiency dice

2 success at cost

3 automatic success

 

[guachi]

I added Slow, Natural Healing and Gritty Realism.

I also abolished short rests and multiplied short rest abilities x3 and had them recharge on a long rest. Though, obviously, that's not an actual variant rule.

The Healing and Realism changes definitely upped the danger the PCs faced. It slowed advancement down as the party couldn't face more difficult challenges. "Slowed down" in the sense it took longer real time and longer in-world time to advance.

It was far easier to give a party 6-8 encounters per long rest. Abolishing short rests meant I could even do 1 encounter and everyone was equally powerful. A fighter Action Surging three times in a fight is quite fun to see. The most encounters I think I did was 12 in a dungeon with level 5 PCs that was designed for level 3 PCs. Very fun watching the players conserve resources (like it was very fun watching them go nuts expending them on a 1 encounter "day")

 

[the Jester]

I strongly recommend against using the optional rule for flanking. It makes achieving advantage on attacks entirely too trivial, in my opinion.

 

[Shiroiken]

Unless this is intended to be a short mini-campaign, do NOT use the permanent damage table. PCs generally become the walking wounded in short order, and nothing ruins a campaign like players unhappy about their characters.

I think most of the others are fairly reasonable. I don't use the mark option or flanking, but that's personal preference. Marks are hard to keep track of, and flanking generally creates conga line combats (as it did in 3E and 4E). I have my own house-rule on healing, so I don't use either of those variants either.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

We just got rid of flanking from our game. It makes single target boss enemies a joke and makes multiple small enemies (like goblins) absolutely deadly.

 

[77IM]

I have a general "wager system" to allow players to break the rules. Want to move farther than your speed? Cast cone of cold as a line? Sever a beholder's eye stalk? Sure!

But first you must succeed on an ability check with an entirely reasonable DC in the 10-15 range. But if you fail, something bad happens -- something roughly as bad as what you were trying to achieve! Failure to move far makes you fall prone; failure to modify a spell's area catches you in the blast; failure to cripple a beholder gives it a free eye beam attack at you; etc.

That's the "wager" part; you're risking a downside. This turns out to be WAY more interesting than setting an absurdly high DC. Just making the stunt super-difficult makes it likely to fail and be a no-op, which is boring, frustrating, and a waste of time. So instead, use a low-to-moderate DC and an interesting failure consequence.

 

[bedir than]

When you say you want a more "robust" game what does that mean? Are you wanting the violence to feel more significant or is it that you want more choices for the players, or something else?

 

[Quickleaf]

My group will be starting a new campaign in a few weeks. I'm looking for ways to enrich the tactical experience (as some of the players quite enjoyed 4e).
What official variant rules have you had success in adding to the game to make 5e a little more robust?

The main thing I found that players of 4e miss is forced movement. There were a plethora of ways to force movement in 4e, and very very few in 5e. However, also consider that a cliff in 4e wasn't as dangerous because you got a save (50% chance) of not being pushed over it.

I'd consider allowing martial-types to push/slide monsters as a bonus action. And give spellcasters the option to include a save vs. knockdown / push / slide if they upcast a suitably thematic spell.

That should be enough.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I have a general "wager system" to allow players to break the rules.

Consider this stolen.