D&D 5E How long til you modified 5e?

[hawknsparrow]

Once you started DMing 5e, how long was it before you started modifying the base game?

The question is intended to exclude entire homebrew settings, rulings on nebulous systems (e.g. stealth), and optional systems proposed in the DMG and other official sources.

It includes homebrew classes/subclasses, races, monsters, spells, feats, and so on. However, I am mostly interested in rule tweaks, like action economy, crit hit/fumble tables, rest rules, etc.

I immediately added some flanking and high ground modifiers.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[akr71]

Considering one of my players' first characters was a beast master ranger, almost immediately. I answered between 1 & 6 months, cuz we did not play every day and it probably took about a month or so to get to levels 3-5 before we realized there was something lacking.

 

[thorgrit]

I started rules tweaking immediately upon seeing the first public playtest rules. Some minor things that I felt past editions did better to my preferences. Fast forward to game publishing, and Elemental Evil player's guide coming out (with the bird people who can fly at level 1), my house rules doc had gotten up to 2 typed pages long covering all manner of things.

I play with pretty casual groups and I realized if I kept this up, nobody would read my house rules doc and might turn away people from playing it. So I scrapped it and went full RAW for simplicity sake, with a couple exceptions:

1) I like the Eberron setting but was underwhelmed at the first UA treatment it got, so I have a campaign specific doc with modified races. I figure the original doc was a self-contained external source anyway, so this alternative doc would be the same level of complexity.

2) I do a Savage Worlds style initiative, dealing out cards each round. (aces high, reverse alphabetical for suits, players hand in card to discard pile after turn is over, continue dealing from same deck until a joker is pulled; joker gets Advantage on attacks and ability checks that round, and the end of the round the deck gets shuffled) I did this for two reasons:
a) I'm bad at initiative tracking, and having a constant visual cue in front of each player that everybody can glance at is easier on me than someone (usually me) maintaining an initiative tracking list
b) it reins in dex a little bit as a god stat

3) Related to 2b, I'm sorely tempted to x out the rapier from the weapons table and replace it with more interesting finesse options. It kinda bugs me that 2/3 to 3/4 of melee classes can run off of dex and the rapier is the obvious optimal choice. My current group features a kobold barbarian that just throws rocks and hides, and a str cleric with a dagger (and doesn't wear armor because his character thinks it's uncomfortable) so I have zero worries about anything remotely minmaxing happening. I might scratch this itch if I play with a different group though.