Here are few house rules I am thinking of applying to my next campaign and wanted to get opinions on balance or if any rule would overshadow another class.
- Character Creation:
- Ability Score: 27 Point buy;
- Bonus Feat: Gain a skill feat (UA 4/17/17) at 1st level minus the ability score improvement.
- Potions: Drinking a potion during your turn can be done using the free use of an object allowed by the rules, and in general is considered to be a “Use an Object” Action. Feeding a potion to an ally requires an action.
- Classes: Monk gets d10 for Hit Points
- Spells:
- Concentration: 1 + 1 based on their class, ie Rangers get 1 plus Hunter's Mark, Wizards get 1 + wizard spell. Restriction can’t take Invisibility or Fly.
- Cleric/Druid/Bard: Add Accelerated Recovery cantrip to spell list
- Charm Spells: Once the spell has ended the target makes another saving throw, if successful the target knows on a fail the target doesn’t remember.
- Short Rest: A short rest is a period of downtime (15 min) during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds. A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains all spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below. Abilities that reset after a short rest will only if the character spends/drops a Hit Die. A healer’s kit is required to spend Hit Die, i.e. to bandage and treat the characters’ wounds
- Long Rest: A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting Spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost Hit Dice. A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.
- Skills Checks:
- Only pc proficient with the skill can aid another pc
- When a skill check is called by pc, only that person can perform the check. This is to limit the effect of arcana knowledge this item, pc fails next person tries, etc
- Death Saves: Each round you are unconscious and not stabilized you add 1 death save roll to your tally. These dice are not rolled until an ally checks on you. As soon as an ally checks on you, you roll all death saves at once.
- If you reach 0 HP and are downed, you gain a level of exhaustion.
ACCELERATED RECOVERY
Evocation cantripCasting Time: 1 Action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You touch an injured creature, concentrate on its wound, and watch as it is slowly healed by its own vitality. The character may spend 1 Hit Die. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier. The character regains hit points equal to the total. If the character doesn’t have any Hit Die, you can sacrifice yours. As you gain levels, the number of Hit Dice that may be spent increases: At 5th level, the creature may spend up to 2 Hit Dice, at 11th level they may spend 3, and at 17th level they may spend 4. (The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll)
So, some reasoning behind the house rules:
Bonus feat: Why not. It adds more flavor to each character. I know some people might think that it will overshadow the rogue and bard expertise but they will just be able to get more skills
Monk: To me it seems weird that all the "melee classes" have a d10 or higher but the monk is a d8. I feel the monk is little bit at a disadvantage with them a little MAD.
Concentration: At least for me playing a caster, I always have a hard time deciding which spell to concentrate on. This would help alleviate that, especially for the ranger and paladin since all of their weapon attacking spells (Wrathful Smite, Hail of Thorns, etc)
Accelerated Recovery: Is to give another option for healing but at the cost of using Hit Die.
Short Rest: At least in our campaigns, we seem to take/require a short rest after most combats (could our DM is throwing higher CR than the recommended). Either way I feel an hour is too long, but a 15min break keeps the suspense and flow of the game.
Long Rest: To prevent short rest from being abused too much the pc only regain spent hit die and hp. Thus, if they are wounded they will need to heal using hit die or something other means.
Skill: This could be just my group, but when someone is trying to figure out a magical item. One person would start and fail. Then the item just gets passed around the party till one knows it.
Death Saves: This is to help build suspense and to prevent yo-yo-ing
Again any feedback is greatly appreciated and would like to see what house rules you use.
