D&D 5E Your Favorite 5e Houserule

[dave2008]

Single encounter big bad guys
Add 1 feat/ASI per 4 CR (save the first four)
Add 1 legendary action per PC above 4.
Multiply HP by 1 +0.25 per PC above 4.
Add 1.5 AC (round up) per PC above 4.

Yes, this is the type of information the DMG could/should have contained. How to modify single monsters for over sized parties. It would be great if it also had information about modifying monsters or encounter guidelines for OP groups as well. Regardless, I think @CapnZapp would approve.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have a reputation system that I'm pretty happy with, although it's still a WiP. It adds a lot to urban and 3rd pillar games.

 

[dave2008]

I have a reputation system that I'm pretty happy with, although it's still a WiP. It adds a lot to urban and 3rd pillar games.

That sounds very interesting, care to share?

 

[Fenris-77]

That sounds very interesting, care to share?

The base of the system is cribbed form this Angry GM post. What I'm layering on to is a way to track favors in influence with individuals and factions. This is tied to downtime activities. In the DMG there are some basic rules for finding things and gaining favors as downtime activities, but they're bland and not well-tied to normal encounter level play,

What I want is some rules that will tie influence and reputation more directly to actual 3rd pillar play, specifically to give the PCs some handholds to plan 3rd pillar stuff. For example, if the PC knows they call in a favor from NPC x, and they know they have the reputation to to get past the guards in place Y, they have some actual resources with which to make a plan of action. Along the same lines, if the players know they need reputation X with faction Y to gain access to the Duke of Chutney, they have concrete ways to go out and make that happen. It sounds mechanical, but in practice there aren't many moving parts and it's easy to work into table talk without breaking character. I'm also working up some rules for an encounter type in between down time and full encounter to represent smaller jobs (if you think of it in terms of, say, Oceans 11 these are montage scenes). There's a book on DMs Guild that ports some rules from Blades in the Dark to 5e for just this purpose that I'm probably just going to adopt wholesale.

The other goal is to decouple skills from stats to an extent, and also make some provisions for non-skill monkey classes that will give them at least a limited ability to bring something to the table in social and non-combat play.

 

[Laurefindel]

The base of the system is cribbed form this Angry GM post. What I'm layering on to is a way to track favors in influence with individuals and factions. This is tied to downtime activities. In the DMG there are some basic rules for finding things and gaining favors as downtime activities, but they're bland and not well-tied to normal encounter level play (...)

Please share when you feel your WiP has more W than P.

 

[dave2008]

The base of the system is cribbed form this Angry GM post. What I'm layering on to is a way to track favors in influence with individuals and factions. This is tied to downtime activities. In the DMG there are some basic rules for finding things and gaining favors as downtime activities, but they're bland and not well-tied to normal encounter level play,

What I want is some rules that will tie influence and reputation more directly to actual 3rd pillar play, specifically to give the PCs some handholds to plan 3rd pillar stuff. For example, if the PC knows they call in a favor from NPC x, and they know they have the reputation to to get past the guards in place Y, they have some actual resources with which to make a plan of action. Along the same lines, if the players know they need reputation X with faction Y to gain access to the Duke of Chutney, they have concrete ways to go out and make that happen. It sounds mechanical, but in practice there aren't many moving parts and it's easy to work into table talk without breaking character. I'm also working up some rules for an encounter type in between down time and full encounter to represent smaller jobs (if you think of it in terms of, say, Oceans 11 these are montage scenes). There's a book on DMs Guild that ports some rules from Blades in the Dark to 5e for just this purpose that I'm probably just going to adopt wholesale.

The other goal is to decouple skills from stats to an extent, and also make some provisions for non-skill monkey classes that will give them at least a limited ability to bring something to the table in social and non-combat play.

Thank you for sharing, I will checkout Angry's post. Would love to see what you finally come up with as well - good luck!

 

[Fenris-77]

Please share when you feel your WiP has more W than P.

I was planning on it. I feel like I have the right moving parts, but the trick isn't adding rules, it removing them until there's just enough to get the job done. I don't want social interaction to feel like combat.

 

[Helldritch]

Yes, this is the type of information the DMG could/should have contained. How to modify single monsters for over sized parties. It would be great if it also had information about modifying monsters or encounter guidelines for OP groups as well. Regardless, I think @CapnZapp would approve.

I have been using it from almost the beginning of 5ed. It works quite well. Large parties are notoriously hard to manage. Some fights are set to hard and turn up to be easy and other fights that were supposed to be hard turn up almost deadly. Managing multiple opponents in 5ed is relatively hard. That is why I dropped the flanking rule (I know it's optionnal) almost immediately. Monsters benefit way too much from that rule.

The main problem with oversize party comes from the number of enemies. I'm still working a bit on it but as a rule of thumb the PCs seems to be able to manage about half their level in CR without too much trouble (that is for each characters). At the same time, other factors gets in. Are the enemies blessed? Hasted? Many factors complicate things but so far this seems to work out most of the times. If the CR of the creatures is over half the level of the PCs I might go for a 3 monsters for two PCs. Up to one for one if the CR is almost equivalent to their levels. A higher CR ratio means less monsters up to one monster vs the whole party.

One example I often gives is Strahd. In many other groups that I have met, they simply went to Strahd and rolled over him as if he was nothing. In my two groups, the players were terrorized and although both group succeeded in defeating Strahd, their victories were not easy ones. About half of both groups were killed or disabled.

 

[CapnZapp]

I was summoned, but really, the "WotC should have" train has gone.

The harsh reality is that WotC simply abandoned any responsibility for their "optional" PHB rules (playing with feats, magic items etc), a decision that they should never have gotten away with, but clearly has.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We have stopped using inspiration as I, the DM, kept forgetting about it. However I might steal the idea of the players giving inspiration instead.

I found that it helps (when using phb inspiration) to think of inspiration as a bonus on the check that inspires you to give it out. Ie, oh that’s a very cool/in character/inspired thing to try, you have inspiration. And they can use it on that roll, or they can take their chances and save it for later.
Also, let players give their inspiration to each other.
also also, watch the recent Aquisitions Inc games with Crawford as DM.

Does this also apply to things like Hunter's Mark, Sneak Attack, and Divine Smite? Or just the base weapon dice?

All damage dice that a crit would normally cause you to roll twice. It’s the same damage maximum, with a higher minimum and thus average.

The base of the system is cribbed form this Angry GM post. What I'm layering on to is a way to track favors in influence with individuals and factions. This is tied to downtime activities. In the DMG there are some basic rules for finding things and gaining favors as downtime activities, but they're bland and not well-tied to normal encounter level play,

What I want is some rules that will tie influence and reputation more directly to actual 3rd pillar play, specifically to give the PCs some handholds to plan 3rd pillar stuff. For example, if the PC knows they call in a favor from NPC x, and they know they have the reputation to to get past the guards in place Y, they have some actual resources with which to make a plan of action. Along the same lines, if the players know they need reputation X with faction Y to gain access to the Duke of Chutney, they have concrete ways to go out and make that happen. It sounds mechanical, but in practice there aren't many moving parts and it's easy to work into table talk without breaking character. I'm also working up some rules for an encounter type in between down time and full encounter to represent smaller jobs (if you think of it in terms of, say, Oceans 11 these are montage scenes). There's a book on DMs Guild that ports some rules from Blades in the Dark to 5e for just this purpose that I'm probably just going to adopt wholesale.

The other goal is to decouple skills from stats to an extent, and also make some provisions for non-skill monkey classes that will give them at least a limited ability to bring something to the table in social and non-combat play.

Man I think you would really like my TTRPG WIP...

although, the base of our system for favor/rep is that you can earn, owe, and call in, favors as essentially treasure, and build relations with Contacts over time, including spending downtime to strengthen relationships, gaining contacts who can provide favors pro bono every so often, as long as you use them sparingly (ie, 1 time between extended rests/downtime), and don’t betray them of blow them off when they need you in turn.