D&D 5E What are your 5e houserules

[el-remmen]

I have two different groups and some of the house rules are slightly different between them because one group is more experienced players who are willing to try out different rules/rulings and the other is less experienced players who get overwhelmed if there are too many rules/changes.

In my 2E/3E days I had so many house rules and changes I had an "Aquerra Player's Guide" (and later a wiki) for my homebrew setting. These days I have tried and failed to minimize the house rules, but there are still substantially fewer than past editions.

Oh and for the record, I don't see stuff like "Core Rules Only" or "Sub-Classes from Tasha's" as "house rules" - those are just options.

Anyway, here is the link to the house rules portal page on my Ghosts of Saltmarsh+ wiki.

Here they are in brief:

• Attunement - Every have 5 attunement slots limited by where they are worn on the body.
• New Backgrounds - I think I have only made one - but any one that we customize during character creation is added as an option
• Bonus Actions - You can do a bonus action as a normal action as long as you don't violate the two spells limit or do the same class ability twice.
• Brewing Healing Potions - custom rules for brewing such potions using the extended rest mechanic
• Changes to Base Bard Class - Stuff from some expansion. Tasha's?
• Changes to Base Ranger Class - No more favored enemy, using Primal Awareness over primeval awareness, etc
• Circle of the Land - just some wilderness stuff added
• Die Rolls - just some stuff like nat 20 always saves and if you need a nat 20 to hit you cannot crit.
• Extended Rest - A week of long rests and non-combat activity - linked to domain powers
• Goodberry - Number of berries is randomly determined, they may sustain you but provide no relief from hunger pangs
• Natural Explorer - see changes to Base Ranger class
• Inspiration - Replaced with Hero Points/Dice
• Lifting and Carrying - Small-sized characters can lift/carry less for their strength score, Large ones carry more
• Lizardfolk - replaced Dragonborn
• Long Rest - Clarifies what interrupts/constitutes a long rest
• Hero Points - replaces inspiration
• Hero's Mantle - just a name change for Crusader's Mantle because "Crusaders" are problematic
• Quarterstaff - The quarterstaff is a two-handed simple weapon that does 1d6 damage. It does not have the versatile feature - but can be used to make an off-hand attack.
• Ready and Delay - Grandfathered these from 3E for initiative
• New Spells - Spells of my own creation
• Stat Draft - Ability score determination for new/starting characters
• Underwater Combat - Made it a little more difficult.

 

[Stalker0]

Oooh, I'd hate this! I love rolling extra dice.

My players absolutely love bless, and after watching how much time was spent in rolling that extra die, doing the math....watching people forget the die and other players reminding them, watching them roll it....it falls off the table, they have to find the die.... its actually surprising how much extra time that one little die adds in.

Changing to +2 was a big time saver and was a sliiiiiight nerf to a spell I consider one of the best in the game.

 

[Jer]

I was thinking that we didn't have any house rules at all, but that's because we don't have them written down anywhere and my brain filters them out as "house rules" rather than "table procedures" (which are the same thing when you boil them down, but I don't really think of them in the same way I think of house rules, which I always associate with a binder full of adjustments to formulas, lists of new spells or banned spells, etc.).

So there are a few that I can think of now, there might be others that I'm forgetting:

• Initiative - we use Balsera-style (aka "popcorn") initiative in all of our games now. We started using it for Icons and it worked so well we use it everywhere.
• Inspiration - You can spend inspiration for "retroactive advantage" (i.e. you don't have to declare it before you roll - you can use it as a reroll if you roll poorly). And instead of giving your inspiration to another player, players can nominate someone to get inspiration after a particularly good bit of RPing or even just an awesome description of a success or failure (this started as more of a way to remind me to hand out inspiration than an actual rule change, hence the "table procedure" tag I have on it).
• Icons - I use the 13th age Icons rules even in most of my D&D games (not all - if I'm teaching new players then I won't do this - this is more for experienced players). I'll have a few movers-and-shakers who are Icons in the setting and players can nominate their own Icons if they feel the setting is missing someone they'd like to have as a patron/enemy/both. You can trade in an Icon roll for narrative changes or to grab inspiration if you really need it (so long as you narrate how the Icon is inspiring you in that moment).
• (ETA) Campaign Losses - I almost forgot this one. Taken from 13th Age as well instead of the party going down to a TPK they suffer a "campaign loss" instead when it happens. Campaign loss can be anything that either advances the bad guys' plans (if there is a bad guy with a plan) to setting back the PC's plans. Ranging from "okay now you're captured and need to escape" to "you're rescued by your hated rival and now you owe them" to "the bad guys' plans have accelerated due to this loss" depending on the context.) It doesn't happen often - TPK situations are rare in general - but when it does it's fun for me to figure out what the loss is going to look like.

 

[TwoSix]

1) The Life Cleric dip into Goodberry simply gives 3 more berries, not increasing each berry's healing from 1 to 4.
2) Triggered bonus actions can go before the action that triggers them, the action is simply constrained to the triggering action.
3) Dual-wielding. No bonus action attack. Instead, if you have a light weapon in each hand, when you miss with your main-hand, you may make an attack with the off-hand weapon (no stat mod added to damage).
4) Flanking. Does not give advantage. Rather, if you're flanking you add a +1d3 to the attack roll. If the attack roll hits AND the 1d3 is a 3, then the hit is a critical hit.

 

[Flamestrike]

1. Potions, bonus action on self.

2. Extra feat at 1st level or 2 "half-feats" without ability bonuses.

3. Casting with weapons shields as normal. Somatic/material components only matter if you are bound, missing focus/component pouch, or trying to cast without someone noticing.

4. If proficient , a character with medicine can attempt a DC15 medicine for all characters to have 1 HD maxed during short rest. For every +5 above, one extra die is maxed.

5. GWM, SS are half feats with +1 str/dex. -5/+10 removed.

6. Most feats rebalanced, too long for this list.

7. You can draw a weapon as a part of attack. Storing is still object interaction.

8. Magic +X/+X weapons add +1d6 damage instead. Same for +X spell focuses.

9. +X armor adds +X damage reduction instead.

10. Buffed most melee non-finesse weapons by a die category or two.

11. Spellcasting that is not a bonus action provokes AoO and damage can interrupt the spell as per concentration rule. Same goes for readied attack at someones casting. Removed minimum of DC10. if attacks deal 1 damage, the DC is 0.

12. Can trade one armor proficiency from starting class for one skill proficiency.

13. Can trade racial +2 bonus for "bonus feat".

This is the first list of House Rules that doesn't obnoxiously punish Martials (and reward casters) I've seen all thread.

Such a weird phenomenon (House rules that almost invariably punish the Fighters) in a game where apparently Martials suck.

 

[jayoungr]

My players absolutely love bless, and after watching how much time was spent in rolling that extra die, doing the math....watching people forget the die and other players reminding them, watching them roll it....it falls off the table, they have to find the die.... its actually surprising how much extra time that one little die adds in.

See, I'd never forget it, because as mentioned, I love extra dice. In fact, I would have much more trouble remembering to add the +2.

Which isn't to say that the +2 isn't a better solution for your table! Rock on with it. I'm just personally glad it's a house rule and not the default.

 

[Blue]

Pretty straightforward:

1. Inspiration is a reroll instead of Advantage so it's feels more useful. (Thought a recent comment I saw was allow it to be either, so that a rogue could get sneak attack.)
1.a. Not a house rule but a related social convention: players can nominate other players for inspiration, which is granted if it has any merit. So it is not just on the DM to notice.

2. Drinking a potion yourself is a bonus action.

3. During exploration / long trips without safety or succor I can invoke the gritty rest variant.

There may be setting-specific changes, like restrictions on some races or whatever, but that's to match the theme of the setting.

 

[Lyxen]

We have exactly ONE house rule in 5e, which is allowing the readying of actions outside of combat, possibly to be triggered on the first round.

Apart from that, the system runs very well with local rulings from DMs that we never translate into formal rules because they depend so much on the exact circumstances. And since class/race balance is completely artificial anyway and totally overshadowed by what the party actually finds in the campaign and how they react to it (situations, enemies, friends, items and how the players deal with the situations) we see no reason to "rebalance" classes.

 

[Stalker0]

Oh one I forgot to mention, which was one of those rules I just assumed was in 5e but was actually a houserule....the ability to delay in combat to a lower initiative.

 

[Flamestrike]

We have exactly ONE house rule in 5e, which is allowing the readying of actions outside of combat, possibly to be triggered on the first round.

''I ready an attack against any hostile creature I can see. Unless stated otherwise, I do this constantly when not in combat.''

Isnt the assumption in the rules, that basically everyone is readying an action, but the opposed Dexterity ability check at the start of Combat (initiative) determines the sequencing of those actions?