D&D 5E (2014) What are your favorite/non-favorite house rules?

[Slit518]

What are some of your favorite house rules?

Alternatively, what are some house rules you detest the most?

 

[iserith]

My house rule for Inspiration is pretty popular among those who have seen it in action: The Case for Inspiration. I'd say it's my favorite and pretty much the only true house rule I use outside of the odd DMG variant depending on the campaign.

I do not like critical miss/fumble house rules at all.

 

[Maestrino]

Hmmm. I like your inspiration idea - have you read Angry GM's idea?

11 Ways to Take the Suck Out of Inspiration in D&D | The Angry GM

The Angry GM delivers advice to players and dungeon masters of fantasy role-playing games with humor, snark, and attitude. Game masters and players are sure to find something of use, whether they are playing AD&D, D&D 3.5, D&D 4E, 5E, Pathfinder, D&D Next, or any other role-playing game.

theangrygm.com

It's his Option 1: Angry's Awesome Inspiration System. (Setting the name aside, it works pretty well...)

 

[iserith]

Hmmm. I like your inspiration idea - have you read Angry GM's idea?

11 Ways to Take the Suck Out of Inspiration in D&D | The Angry GM

The Angry GM delivers advice to players and dungeon masters of fantasy role-playing games with humor, snark, and attitude. Game masters and players are sure to find something of use, whether they are playing AD&D, D&D 3.5, D&D 4E, 5E, Pathfinder, D&D Next, or any other role-playing game.

theangrygm.com

It's his Option 1: Angry's Awesome Inspiration System. (Setting the name aside, it works pretty well...)

I read an article of his on Inspiration early on in D&D 5e as I recall and I didn't like it because he tied it to a setback. I don't do that.

 

[Boendal2]

Exploding crits: The additional die from a crit is automatically the highest number on the die (works for players and monsters)

 

[Lanefan]

My entire game is pretty much houserules so it's hard to come up with any particular one that's a favourite.

Houserule I dislike the most: any blanket rule against otherwise-reasonable and-or generally entertaining character types or activities that would otherwise be present and accepted within the setting. Some examples of what I mean that I've seen on this forum (!) over the years:

--- no evil characters
--- no chaotic characters
--- a ban on playing characters of a gender not your own
--- no in-party romances, flirtations, dalliances, etc.
--- no henches, adventuring hirelings, or secondary characters
--- no outright disagreement with another PC's suggestion or idea, no matter how dumb it is

Note that these are all different from setting-based houserules e.g. if a setting has no Elves in it then a houserule saying you can't play an Elf is fully justified. But every setting has evil and chaos in it, every setting has (at least!) two genders, every setting has romance, and so forth...and therefore it should all be playable.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Favorite: any re-write to inspiration. Obviously this is 5e specific.

Least favorite: crit fails. The newer the edition, the more I hate it. (heck, in B/X I wouldn't mind at all, but in 5e it's a deal breaker.)

 

[GM Lent]

Favorite: max hit points at every level and max healing from spells and potions.

Runner-up: individual initiative and weapon speed modifiers to initiative and keying initiative off of Intelligence instead of Dexterity.

Least favorite: starting the campaign immobilized and/or changed to a wall and powerless to escape until the GM's best friend's PC came to the rescue leading a tribe of velociraptor-riding barbarians. That happened twice, back in like 1994 or 95. Two different GMs and unrelated campaigns, believe it or not.

 

[dregntael]

Favorite: Drinking a potion is a bonus action (but administering one to someone else is still an action).

Least favorite: Any change to HP recovery that is supposed to make the game more 'gritty' but in reality only forces the healer to spend all their spell slots on healing.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

Favourite: I remove restrictions on item interactions to switch out your own equipment. Need to put away your sword and shield to pull out your bow? Sure. You've got your hands full but need to cast a spell with material components? Go right ahead. I just find the one item interaction a turn in practice means that nobody ever switches out their equipment.

Least favourite: Critical fumbles resulting in anything more than just an automatic miss. It's really frustrating to have your character look like an idiot because of a random chance.