D&D 5E Critical Failures & House Rules

[Psikerlord#]

Our house rules:

1. Slow healing option
2. Injuries if reduced to zero hp (make a death save first however, if you save, no injury. We have our own injury & setbacks table).
3. Roll initiative every round (but not declare action, or speed factors)
4. No passive perception
5. -5/+10 for GWM and SS substituted for +1 STr or Dex
6. Crossbow expert does not remove disad from shooting in melee.
7. In character creation, add your stat bonuses to any stat (ie pick your race based on things other than stat boosts)

We used to use the Paizo Crit Deck and Fumble Deck, but havent felt the need to in 5e. We do sometimes impose an extra penalty for a fumble, but it's not regular, depends on the situation.

That's pretty much it, and has worked well for us so far.

 

[Sunseeker]

Critical Failures on attacks:
DM rolls 1D4:
4: Nothing happens. You miss but recover well enough.
3: You drop your weapon, if not wielding a weapon (monks and the like) you fall prone.
2: You expose yourself, OA for nearby enemies.
1: You hit yourself. Deal damage as normal to yourself.

Critical Failure on saves:
Maximum damage/duration of the spell (no need for concentration on the caster's part).

I think it's fairly simple but with a little variety. I wouldn't want to go any further than that to keep combat flowing.
All of these apply to foes as well.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Just to reiterate what others have said, as the players increase in level, they'll get more attacks, which means more rolls. By max level, a fighter will attack four times with every action, meaning a 20% chance of at least one critical failure each round. Statistically, he's therefore extremely likely to get at least one critical failure every five rounds. Imagine it: at this point, he's one of the best fighters in the world, and yet the game says he'll fumble once every thirty seconds (five rounds). That's absurd.

Actually the game only says he'll miss once every thirty seconds. Fumbles aren't in RAW. And I hate them, and have successfully weaned my players off them.

The only important house rule I can think of is using a speed factor initiative variant from the DMG. There might be a couple other smallish ones (vision was a house rule, but is now enshrined in errata as RAW) but for the most part we play by the book except where the book has no rules. E.g. I've made up rules for spell research because RAW has none.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Both my honest-to-god houserules are in my sig.

Beyond that, there's quite a few things that are more like "habitual rulings" that aren't worth enshrining in text.

Oh, and I use group initiative.