D&D 5E What rule(s) do you tend to ignore?

[Oofta]

We ignore a few things

• The sage advice on shield master sequence.
• If you want to throw multiple weapons on your turn it's fine.
• I let people declare shield until after they know they're hit.
• Recovering only half your hit dice after a long rest
• Experience points

I'm sure there's a few others we just don't even think about.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Gosh, this is going to be a long list, as there are a ton of things that I think exist in the game for no good reason, or should in exist in the game with no good reason not to.

Here are the main ones I can think of right now:

1. Ignore most spell components. I still make it so people can't do Verbal components in areas of the Silence spell and similar effects, make sure that they buy expensive material components (sometimes allowing them to do it on the spot, just expending the equivalent gold and being done with it), and other main parts of spell components, but I ignore the whole "you can do spells with Somatic and Material Components (no cost, not consumed) with both hands full as long as one of the hands is holding a spellcasting focus, but not if there aren't any material components (no cost, not consumed)", and I also typically allow players to use material components if they have both hands full as long as the item is on their person. Why in the name of Wizards of the Coast does a spell component need to be in your hands to be consumed? It's not for any balancing reasons, and it's not for any logical reasons (it's magic! surely you can access the magic of your material components that are in your pocket/backpack just as easily as when you're holding them, right!?!?), and it's not for any reason that improves the fun of the game (seriously, who enjoys having to keep track of whether or not they have the hands to access a spell component? No one in their right mind would think that this improves their campaign).
2. Ignore most ammunition (and their weight). Of course, I keep track of magical ammunition, and ammunition for rare weapons (firearms, futuristic weapons, etc), but generic, bog-standard arrows? Who the freak wants to mark down an arrow every time the Archer fires one? Who wants to factor in the weight of every arrow they're carrying? I can understand this for some survival-based campaigns and worlds like Dark Sun, but not for the average D&D campaign.
3. Ignore the weight of gold, as well as encumbrance. Seriously, nothing is more boring than being slowed down by money. Nothing. Also, I do make sure the individual PCs have enough strength to carry the items they have, but I don't use encumbrance. IMO and IME, it just slows down the game and doesn't add anything positive in exchance.
4. A ton of official rulings from Sage Advice/rules from the game that I find nonsensical/not adding to the fun of the game (Goodberry Life Clerics, Magic-Missile being one roll, magical darkness only blocking darkvision if it's explicitly stated, druids not being capable of wearing metal armor/shields but being able to use metal weapons, Magic Initiate and similar Pre-Tasha's feats and races not being able to cast their automatic spells with spell slots from their class, etc).
5. Classes/Subclasses/Class-Options that should get the current version of Bladesinger's Extra Attack not getting it for no reasons based on flavor or balance, like Armorer/Battle-Smith Artificers, Blade-locks (I limit it to exclude Eldritch Blast shenanigans), etc.

 

[ECMO3]

, Magic Initiate and similar Pre-Tasha's feats and races not being able to cast their automatic spells with spell slots from their class, etc).

Actually I think they can already do that with magic initiate because of the wording of the feat - "......you learn that spell......"

If the spell is learned that means you know it and can cast it with any slots.

RAW I think you can't cast many racial spells with slots because it does not say you learn the spell for example Drow magic: "When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Faerie Fire spell once ....."

At least that is my understanding of the RAW.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Actually I think they can already do that with magic initiate because of the wording of the feat - "......you learn that spell......"

If the spell is learned that means you know it and can cast it with any slots.

RAW I think you can't cast many racial spells with slots because it does not say you learn the spell for example Drow magic: "When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Faerie Fire spell once ....."

At least that is my understanding of the RAW.

This is actually addressed in the Sage Advice Compendium, under the Magic Initiate feat section. Simply put, they could only do this if the spell that they chose from Magic Initiate was already on their spell list.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Everything starts RAW and then the group can discuss and decide together what to house rule or ignore. And then these changes apply to any 5E game anyone in the group runs, to keep things consistent.

Other than that, the big one I hate is that rounds are only 6 seconds long and the rules say that so much can be done in such a small amount of time that it breaks immersion for me and makes it annoying to DM it, so I go back to older versions and use 10-second rounds. 10-second rounds are also easier to break down evenly, if an exact order is really needed, at 1/2 second per number on the d20 rolled. And yes, I hate the "everything is actually happening at the same time" BS.

 

[Yaarel]

"What rules do you tend to ignore?"

This is a fun question because I tend to be a by-the-book DM and player.

Probably, the rules that I routinely ignore relate to creating new character options for a setting, such as a new lineage, or a new feat.

Also, I ignore cosmology. There is no Wheel. Recently I am mulling getting rid of the Astral Plane and the four Elemental planes. Thus the only planes that exist anywhere are: Material and Ether (with Fey and Shadow being mindscape aspects of Ether). Similar to the way the Positivity and Negativity are sources but not places to visit, the Material world, with its states of matter, solid, water, gas, and plasma, are sources for Elemental features. I havent implemented this yet, but probably will.

 

[Yaarel]

All the standard ones I think. Spell components, "handedness" (which hands have which items and whether there's one free to use stuff, move stuff etc.), view distance (especially regarding the changes from bright light to dim light to darkness), encumbrance, skills only connecting to a single ability score, the set distribution of class features, and so forth.

Basically I disregard most of the important tropes of early AD&D dungeon crawling, and instead play it like a modern storytelling game. So handwaving all the fiddly bits and just getting to the story.

I totally forgot about light radius. That never happens.

 

[AtomicPope]

Invisibility.


Our House Rule is simple:

When you become Invisible you have Passive Stealth. At first we were rolling Stealth but decided it was better to just add another passive ability. Then if you take an attack action, make an attack, or move at greater than half speed you reveal your position.

 

[Raith5]

Wow that's a big one. So casters can't lose concentration unless they choose to?

It has never seemed a huge deal in play. We still dont allow two concentration spells at once etc

 

[cbwjm]

I ignore the bonus action spellcasting restrictions (sort of just trialling it at the moment, might change it next campaign) and the ridiculous focus rules which don't allow you to use a focus for the somatic component if the spell doesn't have a material component.