House Rules/Homebrew changes to 5th Edition

[DanS]

Hi guys,

First post here and I am looking to get your views and opinions. I did a search on the forum but was unable to find any threads already active - I am sure I have missed them, and if so please redirect me or what not.

I am about to run a campaign using 5th ed. I am setting it in Waterdeep and the surrounding areas. I do enjoy the 5th ed system and prefer it to 3, 3.5 and 4th however, there are some rules I really don't like and some which I think need to be introduced.

I am wondering what you think about the House Rules I am debating. I have already cruised the net to see what the word is on the matter and some ideas come from those, but they cover most of which I feel is a problem in my eyes. note: As I am running the game, I am implementing rules which suit me, as such I will be taking them to my group prior to gameplay to see what they think.

1. Resting - Short Rests are now limited to 2 per Long Rest. You may spend as many HD as available, as normal. Long Rests now give you back your full HD limit (not half as in book) however, you no longer receive max Hit Points upon Long Rest completion, instead you must spend your HD to recoup HP.
2. Hit Points per new level - 1st level equals max class HP, every level from then you must roll for HP, no "taking half" (as in book).
3. HP/HD 11th level up - As of Level 11, you do not gain anymore Hit Points. You do still gain your HD up until Level 15.
4. Gold/Equipment - Starting Gold will be rolled, you will not be able to take starting equipment, you must buy what you can with starting gold roll.
5. Charge - A character may charge an gain the following benefits and penalties: Double damage on attack (overall damage i.e. if you roll 2d6, you would roll 4d6 - if you crit you would only roll 6d6, not 8d6) if you hit, but character suffers advantage attacks on them until their next turn (melee or ranged).

*I need to double check the charge rule in comparison to the martial characters abilities.*

Furthermore, does anyone think a rule for Flat Footed when surprised should be house ruled in place of Ad/DisAd?

Cheers
Dan

 

[Nebulous]

I'd be careful with Charge, and also remember, then monsters can do that too, so you're looking at a LOT of critical hit damage essentially. I thought, and I could be wrong, that Charging was reserved in 5e for a Fighter ability as one of their shticks.

Flat footed could easily be houseruled, i don't see any problem. I think 5th edition is perfect for modification, so it will be interesting to see what comes out in time.

 

[DogBackward]

#1: There's really no need to limit short rests to a certain number per long rest. They take an hour, so a group will very rarely short rest more than once or twice per day anyway. If your group is constantly sitting down to take an hour-long short rest, then chances are you're not putting enough pressure on them as the DM. Remember, enemies aren't just gonna sit still while their home is being invaded by adventurers.

#2: I disagree with anything permanent about a character being decided randomly, but that's just a personal preference.

#3: Unless you're reducing the damage of monsters past level 11, this is a horrible idea. Unlike previous editions,the main difference between low level characters and high level characters is HP maximum compared to damage dealt. If HP maximums stop increasing, but the damage dealt by the monsters isn't also reduced, your party will die horribly, and often. It's a major point of balance for the game, don't mess with it without a lot of thought, planning and playtesting.

#4: Again with the randomness. It's up to you, I guess, but it still sucks to be the character that has to deal with the bad luck dice rolls. It's less of a problem with gold, I guess... unless your character has a need for expensive items, like spellbooks or medium/heavy armor and the like.

#5: This... will cause issues. For one, you should probably specify what exactly entails a charge. Is it just moving and attacking in the same round? Is it an action to move X feet and then make an attack? Does it have to be in a straight line, as with previous editions? It can also be horribly abused by Reckless Attacking barbarians... they're already granting advantage on attacks against them to gain advantage on their attack, so they're not losing anything at all by also charging for double damage.

 

[FireLance]

It really depends on what you want to achieve with the house rules.

If your intention is to have more randomness and more fragile characters that recover slower from injuries, then your proposed house rules should work fine.

On a personal note, I would not want to play in a campaign with any of those house rules, but we obviously have very different playstyle preferences.

 

[Boarstorm]

Welcome to the boards!

You have the power. Do what you want. Just be prepared to change things in case the law of unforeseen consequences rears its ugly head.

I think some of the concerns voiced above are valid, but as far as obstacles go, they are all easily overcome. The only one that seems especially hard to deal with would be the charge action. I'd probably limit it to giving advantage on the attack roll, but giving opponents advantage on their counterattacks.

 

[DanS]

I should have stated with (3) that the Monsters will be scaled to suit this alteration in HP. But you make some good points all the same.

The Short Rest is nothing to do with party pressure or alike, its just a result of a hatred for max hit points when you long rest. Furthermore, a way to make players think about going screaming into battle. Possibly needs work, but I think I prefer to use the LR HD rather than max.

I agree it sucks when a random roll goes low, but that's the nature of the game, rolls+mod=total. If rolling is a problem to the players then I would say we're already at a loss. As a group we try to remove ourselves from a metagame min/max and also with the 5th ed traits, backgrounds etc, I feel randomness is good to promote playing varied and non-perfect characters. But I understand that isn't for everyone.

I think, just from you guys that Charge needs to be looked at and possibly with the details from DogBackward abandoned as it was just a basic idea and I hadn't done the full research into it yet.

Thanks for the feedback so far... taken into account and I will likely be removing the charge idea and looking further into the level 11 hp max.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

There is a feat that gives the ability to charge. I'd recommend looking it over and consider giving the feat to everyone for free if you want a charge mechanic in your game.

Limiting HP after level 11 is a HUGE change. It would make many of the high CR monsters a much higher threat and you will have many dead PCs if they are encountered with this rule. If that's the desired effect and you would rather have PCs defeat these enemies with cunning rather than directly engaging then it's spot on.

Everyone has a different opinion on relying on random factors to determine character aspects. You should talk to your players about how they feel about it before forcing rolls for HP and wealth.

 

[DEFCON 1]

1. Resting - Short Rests are now limited to 2 per Long Rest. You may spend as many HD as available, as normal. Long Rests now give you back your full HD limit (not half as in book) however, you no longer receive max Hit Points upon Long Rest completion, instead you must spend your HD to recoup HP.
2. Hit Points per new level - 1st level equals max class HP, every level from then you must roll for HP, no "taking half" (as in book).
3. HP/HD 11th level up - As of Level 11, you do not gain anymore Hit Points. You do still gain your HD up until Level 15.
4. Gold/Equipment - Starting Gold will be rolled, you will not be able to take starting equipment, you must buy what you can with starting gold roll.
5. Charge - A character may charge an gain the following benefits and penalties: Double damage on attack (overall damage i.e. if you roll 2d6, you would roll 4d6 - if you crit you would only roll 6d6, not 8d6) if you hit, but character suffers advantage attacks on them until their next turn (melee or ranged).

Furthermore, does anyone think a rule for Flat Footed when surprised should be house ruled in place of Ad/DisAd?

Cheers
Dan

Here's my personal thoughts on the matter:

1) I don't know if actually setting a hard and fast rule of "only two Short Rests per Long Rest" is really going to be necessary. If the party is going to be in a situation where they are going to be in so many fights where those that have Short Rest re-chargable abilities are going to want to continually re-charge them... they're probably in a location (like a dungeon) where being able to take three or more 1-hour rests at various points within is probably unlikely. So I don't know if it's ever going to be an issue such that you need a house rule on it. After all... if it really becomes such an issue time and time again that the party keeps wanting to re-charge because the Short Rest PCs keep going nova after five minutes of action, or they're so cowardly that they don't want to continue on without re-charging... just have monsters show up to interrupt them during their rests. Just because they may *want* to take that third hour-long rest, doesn't mean you have to give it to them. But at the same time... there may come a point in your campaign when letting them take a third hour long Short Rest rather than force them into an 8-hour Long Rest might be perfectly okay. So why hamstring yourself over it?

As far as the "Long rest full HD re-charge, spend HD to heal"... I personally don't think your houserule is going to result in anything different than what the rules currently say. After a Long Rest, the PCs are going to be at almost full hit points, and only have a few HD remaining *regardless*. Because (if you follow the actual rules) their HP completely recharge but they only get half their HD back (which for a lot of characters means they are about half their HD)... or they fully re-charge their HD and them *immediately* spend them to get their HP up to full before heading back out. So as a result... they are *still* going back out at almost full HP and down a significant number of HD in both cases. Your rule does not really grant you what you want.

So to me it's six on one hand, half a dozen on the other. But maybe you'll find it to be different?

2) This houserule results in the potential for unbalancing the characters to each other... which if you are okay with it and the players are okay with it... then go with it (if you just genuinely prefer the randomness factor of the situation.) Just be prepared for the possibility of the Fighter rolling three 9s or 10s on their HP, the Wizard rolling a series of 1s, and then trying to figure out the proper number of monsters you have to throw out there that will be able to challenge said Fighter, without completely smearing and one-shotting the Wizard over and over and over again. Because that kind of unbalancing is possible.

3) I have no idea how useful or not useful this hourserule will be. My guess is that it just will make fights more difficult for the party, as each level they will be down 10% of the expected number of hit points the monsters have been balanced against. Won't be much of a factor at levels 11, 12, or 13... but once you get up around 17, 18, 19, it's going to have a much greater impact. Personally... I don't see the gain in your proposed houserule, as my first instinct is always to just throw more monsters out there (in number or power) if the party seems like they are handling the encounters with ease. Balancing each fight on the fly by having another monster show up to me is much easier than slashing the HP of the party then needing to guess how that is going to affect the balancing of fights later on. But I'm lazy in that way.

4) I'm fine with this idea, as I found in my own games that the "starting equipment" packages are never exactly what the players end up wanting, and they always ask to buy equipment anyway. And as the game gives you the "rolling for starting gold" right there in the rules, I wouldn't even call this a houserule for you, per se. It's an expected part of the game.

5) Never would I use the rule you proposed. Too much gain for not enough loss. If you want to introduce the Charge action into your game... my suggestion would be just to just take what you get from the Charger feat and use that as an action in of itself that anyone can do, rather than require someone to spend a feat slot for it.

At the *very* least if you decide to use your houserule... you should state that the double damage only applies to the *first* attack of the Charge. Otherwise, as you have written it every class that gets multiple attacks using a single action would get double damage on all of them. Which will kill the game dead.

And finally... I don't personally see the gain in a Flat Footed condition as a substitute to the Ad/DisAd system. I am a huge proponent to the ease-of-use of that system and have rarely seen any situation where taking it out gained anything substantial. But as Cover is currently the only non-class specific game system that grants small numeric bonuses (over and above the Ad/DisAd system), maybe you're okay with adding more? That comes down to personal preference I suppose. Up to you.

Them's my feeling on the matter. Take them for what you will.

 

[MoonSong]

The Short Rest is nothing to do with party pressure or alike, its just a result of a hatred for max hit points when you long rest. Furthermore, a way to make players think about going screaming into battle. Possibly needs work, but I think I prefer to use the LR HD rather than max.

I suggest you don't mess with short rests, they can be used to heal with HD, but many classes also use them to recover resources of other kinds. Maybe you could limit the times you can spend HD during a short rest instead of limiting short rests themselves.

 

[Morrus]

We have an entire forum full of house rules and homebrew stuff.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?7-House-Rules-Homebrews-amp-Conversion-Library

I'll move this over there for you.