D&D (2024) What are your 2024 houserules?

[mellored]

Now that it's been out for a bit, what houserule do you have for 2024?

 

[mellored]

Does it give some monsters additional abilitites like them going berserk?

Yes. There where already a few in 2014, but they just spelled it out as "half you maximum hit points".

I.e. 2014 life cleric..
This feature can restore a creature to no more than half of its hit point maximum.

Vs 2024 life cleric
Choose Bloodied creatures within 30 feet

Didn't it do this when it was introduced in 4E?

Yes. Though it's less common in 5e.

Is it just a descriptor for the DM to use to give the players one more edge so they know a creature has only 50% of its original hit points?

Yes.

"How hurt is it" is a fairly common question i get.
Without being specific, or breaking immersion by saying 24 HP, I can now say "blood oozes from a gash on his arm" or some such.

I think it also helps make a consistent narrative. Since it implies that the top half of your HP is endurance/armor, and the bottom half is more physical damage.

 

[R_J_K75]

Yeah, all the effects are triggered on the monster/character end. For example there's a few monsters in the new MM who have abilities that only activate against opponents who are bloodied. I think there's a couple subclass abilities that only activate when the PC is bloodied as well.

Vs 2024 life cleric
Choose Bloodied creatures within 30 feet

So IIRC, in 4E it was geared more towards monsters than players/PCs and triggered certain things in monsters

"How hurt is it" is a fairly common question i get.
Without being specific, or breaking immersion by saying 24 HP, I can now say "blood oozes from a gash on his arm" or some such.

I've been doing this for many, many years.

Because I had heard and saw that bloodied had returned in the new revision, I was pretty surprised at the paltry entry in the Rules Glossary online. After reading it I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story after he decoded the secret message with his Little Orphan Annie Decoder Pin...

 

[Stormonu]

The only thing about Bloodied is it isn't the best descriptor. How can you Bloody a skeleton or a stone golem? "Battered" might have been a slightly better name for the condition, but it does mostly work for about 80-90% of creatures/PCs.

 

[mellored]

So IIRC, in 4E it was geared more towards monsters than players/PCs and triggered certain things in monsters

It was both.
Dragonborn got +1 when Bloodied
Tieflings got +1 against Bloodied
Shifters had... something activate when Bloodied
(May have been a feats)
And there was several magic item that gave bonus when Bloodied.

I played a Avenger of the Raven Queen who took all the bonus when Bloodied stuff. Themed as being closer to death means closer to her god, and thus more powerful.

5e removed a lot of the fiddly +1's like that, but 4e was full of them.

 

[R_J_K75]

It was both.
Dragonborn got +1 when Bloodied
Tieflings got +1 against Bloodied
Shifters had... something activate when Bloodied
(May have been a feats)
And there was several magic item that gave bonus when Bloodied.

I played a Avenger of the Raven Queen who took all the bonus when Bloodied stuff. Themed as being closer to death means closer to her god, and thus more powerful.

5e removed a lot of the fiddly +1's like that, but 4e was full of them.

I stopped playing 4E before it was bloodied as an edition, so I just remember it applying more to monsters than PC's, as I was the only one who DM'd it.

 

[R_J_K75]

5e removed a lot of the fiddly +1's like that, but 4e was full of them.

Yeah I couldn't stand the fiddly +'s from previous editions

 

[billd91]

We're not using the potion miscibility table that got re-inserted into 5e.2024.

 

[R_J_K75]

We're not using the potion miscibility table that got re-inserted into 5e.2024.

But those were so much fun when a PC went BOOM!!

 

[evilbob]

We like the exploding 20s critical house rule from some D&D YouTube/podcast group that I forgot: when you roll a 20 to critically hit, you crit, and roll again. If it's a 20 again, you do maximum possible damage on all dice, and roll again. If it's a 20 a third time, the thing just dies.

Max damage comes up about once every few sessions and 3 times in a row comes up about 1/campaign but it adds some anticipatory fun.

I used to have a huge list of minor tweaks and + to this or - to that. I think my group is past all that now.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Mine

Two weapon fighting takes 2 hands. I'm sure that was the intention of the rules.

Yeah. I would not call that a house rule... noone has actually tried to juggle weapons at my table.
But technically it probably is...

Spirit Guardians and similar doesn't trigger when moving the Cleric around outside their turn.

Probably also a sane house rule. But same answer as above. Noone tried to exploit that at my table.

Conjure Minor Elemental damage is limited to twice per turn.

Twice seems a bit arbitrary and probably still too much.

Hidden breaks if you don't have cover at the end of your turn. If you Dash you need to reroll your stealth check with disadvantage.

I like that.