Gladius Legis
Legend
This is a rather ironic assertion considering there's a thread complaining about the Rogue's Expertise on the same page.
D&D 5E Tweaking 5E: Your knobs, dials and switches.
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
Alanis Morissette ironic (maybe a bunch of just say no DMs) ...these numbers do not impress me In the last edition someone skilled in bluff and stealth at what would be level 13 in 5e could pull off a stunt where they regularly can hide in plain sight (invisible as long as you do not leave the location you hid in - you could even fire your crossbow while invisible without revealing yourself). I see nothing like that happening at all let alone with a measure of reliability via skill and utility powers - I see quibbling over petty differences when casters are wrapping reality around a finger. Further the ranger needing to be a caster implies skills cannot cut it.
In 5e Expertise (at level 13) will take something from impossible to nearly impossible.... which is still ahem mechanically a fluke.
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The one thing I’ve had to fiddle with is maximizing HP for monsters at higher levels. The PCs dish out so much damage. And tossing out the encounter guidelines post level 15. Pretty much throw anything at the PCs and they’ll wiggle their way out. It freaked one of my players out when I mentioned that I have no idea of the challenge level 
From the player side, with overnight LR and spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut it was easy to retreat and rest after 1-3 encounters. With 1 week LR the party often have to complete an adventure before they can LR. This also means they worry about attrition.
From the GM side, it rarely felt natural or plausible to have 6-8 encounters in a day.
Another advantage is that 1 week LR allows time to pass at a reasonable rate, which I find is important in long term campaigns.
Motorskills
Explorer
Let me see if I follow, the current rules are:
1) short rests allow you to burn HD to restore HP
2) long rests give you all your HP
3) long rests give you half your burned HD back
You are removing rule 2, and amending rule 3 to restore all (not half)?
I often incorporate a vaguely Gumshoe approach to non-magical equipment. You tell me a good story and maybe you'll find what you need in the bottom of your backpack. It adds loads on the story side and cuts way down on book keeping and huge lists on character sheets. I like both those things. It's not quite flashbacks but it's close.
I cut short rests down to 10 minutes for my current campaign. It works there because of the party mix (the only full caster is a Bard and party doesn't have a lot of magical healing), but it wouldn't work in every campaign I've run. I find that SR hour is just really inconvenient from a narrative standpoint. I don't let the players take that 5m whenever they like mind you, they do need to find an appropriate spot (think any computer RPG ever: you can't rest while enemies are nearby). As a way to keep Monks, Warlocks and Fighters in play I think it works pretty well. I run a pretty cinematic campaign and the PCs tend to take a good beating on a regular basis, so they really need the SR heals to keep the adventuring day rolling.
I'm trying out some opposed rolling in combat for rogues to get sneak attack off, rather than working the hide/attack mechanic. Most of the time I find that Hide-attack-hide-attack sequence really artificial and mostly a pain in the butt. So I'll get rogues to make a stealth roll as a BA to get the same thing done, opposed as I see fit in the situation (i.e. not always against passive perception, which is often way to low to be a real barrier). The more enemies there are the harder the opposed roll. It's worked pretty well so far.
I cut short rests down to 10 minutes for my current campaign. It works there because of the party mix (the only full caster is a Bard and party doesn't have a lot of magical healing), but it wouldn't work in every campaign I've run. I find that SR hour is just really inconvenient from a narrative standpoint. I don't let the players take that 5m whenever they like mind you, they do need to find an appropriate spot (think any computer RPG ever: you can't rest while enemies are nearby). As a way to keep Monks, Warlocks and Fighters in play I think it works pretty well. I run a pretty cinematic campaign and the PCs tend to take a good beating on a regular basis, so they really need the SR heals to keep the adventuring day rolling.
I'm trying out some opposed rolling in combat for rogues to get sneak attack off, rather than working the hide/attack mechanic. Most of the time I find that Hide-attack-hide-attack sequence really artificial and mostly a pain in the butt. So I'll get rogues to make a stealth roll as a BA to get the same thing done, opposed as I see fit in the situation (i.e. not always against passive perception, which is often way to low to be a real barrier). The more enemies there are the harder the opposed roll. It's worked pretty well so far.
Horwath
Legend
1. Reworked all feats to power level of "half-feats".
So every ASI is 2 ability points, 1 ability point and a feat or two feats.
2. Added bonus feats(half-feats) at levels 1,5,9,13,17,20. Those are feats related to skills and racial feats.
3. -5/+10 part of feats removed and left with a half-feat.
4. Ability scores capped at 18. Added light a light armor that has AC 13+dex mod.
5. Initiative is rolled with d12 and adds dex, int and wis mods.
6. Bumped up all non finesse weapons by die step or two.
Longsword 1d10(1d12 versatile), greatsword 2d8, etc...
7. Added a variant where there is no racial ability bonuses(races rebalanced) nor there is bonuses with ASI's(you can take only feats), all start with same ability array that factor in racial bonuses and ASIs(on average). It gives more powerful characters. You will have to adapt CRs somewhat.
Standard array: 18,16,14,12,12,10
Powerful array: 18,18,16,14,12,12
Weak array: 16,14,12,12,10,10
or make up any that you want.
8. Exhaustion: levels add -1 penalty to attacks, checks, saves and DCs. -5ft speed penalty per level(min 5ft speed movement)
you die at 6th exhaustion level.
Gives more smoother effect unlike binary disadvantage on more and more checks.
Rangers at 3rd level gain endurance: they halve their effective exhaustion level(round down). So they die at exhaustion level 12.
getting knocked out gives you exhaustion level.
So every ASI is 2 ability points, 1 ability point and a feat or two feats.
2. Added bonus feats(half-feats) at levels 1,5,9,13,17,20. Those are feats related to skills and racial feats.
3. -5/+10 part of feats removed and left with a half-feat.
4. Ability scores capped at 18. Added light a light armor that has AC 13+dex mod.
5. Initiative is rolled with d12 and adds dex, int and wis mods.
6. Bumped up all non finesse weapons by die step or two.
Longsword 1d10(1d12 versatile), greatsword 2d8, etc...
7. Added a variant where there is no racial ability bonuses(races rebalanced) nor there is bonuses with ASI's(you can take only feats), all start with same ability array that factor in racial bonuses and ASIs(on average). It gives more powerful characters. You will have to adapt CRs somewhat.
Standard array: 18,16,14,12,12,10
Powerful array: 18,18,16,14,12,12
Weak array: 16,14,12,12,10,10
or make up any that you want.
8. Exhaustion: levels add -1 penalty to attacks, checks, saves and DCs. -5ft speed penalty per level(min 5ft speed movement)
you die at 6th exhaustion level.
Gives more smoother effect unlike binary disadvantage on more and more checks.
Rangers at 3rd level gain endurance: they halve their effective exhaustion level(round down). So they die at exhaustion level 12.
getting knocked out gives you exhaustion level.
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Swarmkeeper
Hero
The theme I sense here is that it seems many DMs look at 6-8 encounters and immediately think 6-8 Combats. I agree, that's a lot of Combat! And why wouldn't we think this? Most of the rules of the game center around Combat so it just makes sense to fall into this line of thought. I'm not saying you all do, but from how I'm interpreting what I'm reading it seems plausible that some of you might equate combats with encounters. I certainly used to and I know other DMs who used to as well.
When I look at 6-8 encounters now, yes several might include combat, but certainly not all. As the Angry GM points out, Combat is not an actual encounter, it is just another form of conflict resolution. There are often opportunities for the players to use skills (Stealth, Persuasion, Intimidation) instead of weapons to resolve a potential violent conflict. Many encounters don't really even have combat as an option for resolving the challenge, such as:
- Seeking out the black market shop that has the special doo-dad the party needs for their journey into the wilderness.
- Finding a skilled, trustworthy guide and negotiating a fair price
- Figuring out a way to overcome an environmental hazard like a wide fast flowing river
- Avoiding a trap set up by some unknown foe
- Investigating the strange statue in the middle of the grove.
- Etc.
Using 6-8 encounters as a target then doesn't feel like "squeezing them in" to one day, and you need not utilize a traditional D&D menagerie "artificial" dungeon to achieve this targer, when you parse out what the DMG (p81) is describing as an encounter. Reading the section over, they really don't do a stellar job of it, but it is there. For example, look at the sample encounter table on p87 - not all are encounters resolvable by combat. "That day we were amazed to discover that when the DMG was saying 'Creating a Combat Encounter', what it meant was, 'Creating an Encounter Resolved Via Combat' And even more amazing was the day we realized the DMG truly loved us back." Wait... what?
I like this. If I were to go with the one week long rest, this would be the primary reason. The overnight "booboos all better" has mildly bugged me, but then again not enough to really ruin the fun.
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Doc_Klueless
Doors and Corners
I took a rule from Modern AGE/The Expanse called Take a Breather. It's just 15 minutes where the characters catch their breath, drink water, etc. If they do that, they can spend up to 1/2 their HD (minimum of 1). It's not long enough to use more hit dice than that and they don't get back any powers. But I think it simulates the Non-Body Point portion of Hit Points fairly well.
Hitting 0 hit points gives a level of Fatigue. Really cuts down on Wack-a-mole.
Hitting 0 hit points gives a level of Fatigue. Really cuts down on Wack-a-mole.
Swarmkeeper
Hero
A few more knobs, levers, and switches we use at our tables:
Critical hits: the first set of dice are MAXed, then you roll the second set for additional damage. Makes it feel more critical. Nothing worse than rolling two 1's on a crit with your long sword. Of course, this cuts both ways as the enemies do the same. For example, the 1st level rogue strikes with her dagger against an enemy engaged in melee with the fighter (sneak attack!): damage = 4+6+d4+d6+DEX mod
Initiative: Players roll initiative at the beginning of the session, then at the end of each combat to allow us to jump right into the action. As DM, I try to have initiative rolled for the baddies and marked in my notes before the session. Avoids the combat "swoosh".
XP: I award XP for non-combat objectives.
Hit points: upon leveling up, I've used two alternative HP increase methods.
1. Player rolls for HP with the minimum result being the "average" (so a rogue would "roll" a minimum of 5 but could get higher with a good roll). One might call this "Reliable Hit Points".
2. Give the player the choice of taking the "average" (so a rogue with d8 hit dice could take a 5) OR rolling two Hit Dice and taking the higher of those two. Kind of a gamble but seems like a player has a good chance to beat the average. But a player could roll two 1s... sad trombone.
Critical hits: the first set of dice are MAXed, then you roll the second set for additional damage. Makes it feel more critical. Nothing worse than rolling two 1's on a crit with your long sword. Of course, this cuts both ways as the enemies do the same. For example, the 1st level rogue strikes with her dagger against an enemy engaged in melee with the fighter (sneak attack!): damage = 4+6+d4+d6+DEX mod
Initiative: Players roll initiative at the beginning of the session, then at the end of each combat to allow us to jump right into the action. As DM, I try to have initiative rolled for the baddies and marked in my notes before the session. Avoids the combat "swoosh".
XP: I award XP for non-combat objectives.
Hit points: upon leveling up, I've used two alternative HP increase methods.
1. Player rolls for HP with the minimum result being the "average" (so a rogue would "roll" a minimum of 5 but could get higher with a good roll). One might call this "Reliable Hit Points".
2. Give the player the choice of taking the "average" (so a rogue with d8 hit dice could take a 5) OR rolling two Hit Dice and taking the higher of those two. Kind of a gamble but seems like a player has a good chance to beat the average. But a player could roll two 1s... sad trombone.
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