D&D 5E Little Tweaks that Surprisingly Influence Your Campaigns or Game Sessions

[Rhenny]

I just wanted to let you all know something that's happening in my campaign that I find adds a new layer of tension, and see what small tweaks you've made that surprisingly make a larger impact than what you expected.

In a recent game session, the party defeated a foe who was wearing plate armor. The party is only 4th level, and they don't have nearly enough cash to buy plate armor, but the fighter in the group really wanted to loot and take the damaged plate armor from the dead foe. Instead of saying no, I let him take it and use it, but I did tell him that the quality of the armor was poor and nearly broken so there was a chance that it could break and become unusable.

Now, after each encounter where he takes damage, I have him roll a d20. Depending on how many blows he takes, if he rolls a 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5 on the d20 (I set the number after I eyeball the extent of his combat involvement), I will make the armor break. This has influenced a number of things in the campaign. First, it is giving the PC a chance to be more powerful and try out a substantial bonus. He is happy about that. Second, it is raising the level of tension when the fighter gets into a brawl. Finally, it has influenced the way the PC acts and thinks, which I really like as well. Now, he uses a greataxe instead of sword and board. He also will not always look for a fight for fear that his armor might get ruined. So far, the armor has survived for 3 encounters.

What are some of the little tweaks that are influencing your campaign.

 

[darjr]

That's amazing! Love it. This is what I really love about RPGs. How the fluff and rules are really two sides of the same coin.

I had a player that found an intelligent sword. It took over his character, and while he's mourned the loss of that character he's pretty much playing the sword now. His sword is trying to find a way into another NPCs hands.

 

[MG.0]

Since when is looting armor and weapons from fallen foes unusual?

 

[Rhenny]

Since when is looting armor and weapons from fallen foes unusual?

It isn't. But applying the "poor quality" roll after each encounter is not in the rules. It was a house rule tweak that I added, and it had unexpected repercussions.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Since when is looting armor and weapons from fallen foes unusual?

This is the first edition where 1) plate armor is outside of the expected wealth for low-level characters; and 2) there are guidelines in place to suggest that PCs should encounter enemies wearing plate armor before they can necessarily afford their own.

Prior to 3E, there were simply no guidelines for when enemies should start wearing plate. In 3.x, NPC wealth guidelines prevented (enemy) NPCs from showing up with wealth much higher than the party wealth. In 4E, plate armor was cheap enough that there was no point in looting enemy knights.

So, even though looting armor from an enemy is not unusual, this is the first edition where that behavior has this new ramification.

 

[MG.0]

It isn't. But applying the "poor quality" roll after each encounter is not in the rules. It was a house rule tweak that I added, and it had unexpected repercussions.

I applaud the custom ruling. Things like that often add fun to a game as long as they don't overwhelm the DM.

I've done similar things since 1st edition, so I guess it just seemed typical to me. Maybe not as many people play that way anymore.

 

[MG.0]

This is the first edition where 1) plate armor is outside of the expected wealth for low-level characters; and 2) there are guidelines in place to suggest that PCs should encounter enemies wearing plate armor before they can necessarily afford their own.

Prior to 3E, there were simply no guidelines for when enemies should start wearing plate. In 3.x, NPC wealth guidelines prevented (enemy) NPCs from showing up with wealth much higher than the party wealth. In 4E, plate armor was cheap enough that there was no point in looting enemy knights.

So, even though looting armor from an enemy is not unusual, this is the first edition where that behavior has this new ramification.

Plate was pretty expensive (about twice the maximum possible starting gold for a fighter) in 1st edition. In my games by the time you take expenses into account, it might be awhile before you could expect to afford it. Second edition made the difference far greater.

I never played 3rd or 4th and am pretty happy I skipped that entire era.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I kind of like a rule from a game called Dragon Warriors, involving shields. Essentially, you roll to hit. Your attack roll v their defence roll (essentially a standard 5e to-hit roll, with your target's AC being Armour+Dex bonus only).

If your target has a shield, and if you hit, your target rolls a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the shield takes the hit, effectively making your "hit" a miss.

I've not tried it in d&d of any edition, but it's kind of a nice mechanic that makes shields a bit more interesting. Your opponent rolled a 19? Ha! Shield to the rescue.

Certainly visualises things more clearly rather than subsuming the shield into the background.

I may try it out one day - what do you guys reckon?

Let's say you're a level 5 PC with a dex mod of +2 and an AC from armour of 13. Your AC with shield is 17. So you get hit 4/20 times or 1/5 (20%). For every 100 attacks you'd receive 20 hits.

Using this rule you'd get hit (AC of 15) 6/20 times, or 30% of the time. But you'd have your shield save you 2/6 (1/3) of the time. So for every 100 attacks, you'd get hit 30 times but 10 of them would get blocked by the shield (20 total).

An otherwise unarmoured person with shield (AC 12):
Hit 9/20, or 45%. 45 hits per 100 attacks.
With this rule, Ac10 = hit 11/20 (55%) but shield blocks 2 in 6 = 36.67% hits only. 55 hits per hundred reduced to 37.

Makes shields much more advantageous for lower AC people.

Hmm. Anyway, something like this could definitely give you a chance to use a "damage to armour" mechanic - say 5% cumulative chance of your shield breaking per time it saves you.

 

[Rhenny]

I kind of like a rule from a game called Dragon Warriors, involving shields. Essentially, you roll to hit. Your attack roll v their defence roll (essentially a standard 5e to-hit roll, with your target's AC being Armour+Dex bonus only).

If your target has a shield, and if you hit, your target rolls a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the shield takes the hit, effectively making your "hit" a miss.

I've not tried it in d&d of any edition, but it's kind of a nice mechanic that makes shields a bit more interesting. Your opponent rolled a 19? Ha! Shield to the rescue.

Certainly visualises things more clearly rather than subsuming the shield into the background.

I may try it out one day - what do you guys reckon?

Let's say you're a level 5 PC with a dex mod of +2 and an AC from armour of 13. Your AC with shield is 17. So you get hit 4/20 times or 1/5 (20%). For every 100 attacks you'd receive 20 hits.

Using this rule you'd get hit (AC of 15) 6/20 times, or 30% of the time. But you'd have your shield save you 2/6 (1/3) of the time. So for every 100 attacks, you'd get hit 30 times but 10 of them would get blocked by the shield (20 total).

An otherwise unarmoured person with shield (AC 12):
Hit 9/20, or 45%. 45 hits per 100 attacks.
With this rule, Ac10 = hit 11/20 (55%) but shield blocks 2 in 6 = 36.67% hits only. 55 hits per hundred reduced to 37.

Makes shields much more advantageous for lower AC people.

Hmm. Anyway, something like this could definitely give you a chance to use a "damage to armour" mechanic - say 5% cumulative chance of your shield breaking per time it saves you.

Interesting idea. It adds an active defense to the PC rather than a passive one, and rolling a 1 or 2 on a d6 instead of having some difficult calculation or even using a larger die, probably won't slow things down that much.

Do you think that this would take the place of a reaction and only be useable 1 per turn? That's were it may tend to be less effective than just having the passive +2 to AC, which in the standard rules applies to all attacks against AC. (The optional rule in the DMG where shield bonus can only apply to attacks from the front arc and shield side arc is a bit more limited and approaches the active defense idea a tiny bit more).

If you play with the rule, keep track of how it changes game play especially if it influences players to act differently than they normally would. It does sound interesting.

 

[Horwath]

I kind of like a rule from a game called Dragon Warriors, involving shields. Essentially, you roll to hit. Your attack roll v their defence roll (essentially a standard 5e to-hit roll, with your target's AC being Armour+Dex bonus only).

If your target has a shield, and if you hit, your target rolls a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the shield takes the hit, effectively making your "hit" a miss.

I've not tried it in d&d of any edition, but it's kind of a nice mechanic that makes shields a bit more interesting. Your opponent rolled a 19? Ha! Shield to the rescue.

Certainly visualises things more clearly rather than subsuming the shield into the background.

I may try it out one day - what do you guys reckon?

Let's say you're a level 5 PC with a dex mod of +2 and an AC from armour of 13. Your AC with shield is 17. So you get hit 4/20 times or 1/5 (20%). For every 100 attacks you'd receive 20 hits.

Using this rule you'd get hit (AC of 15) 6/20 times, or 30% of the time. But you'd have your shield save you 2/6 (1/3) of the time. So for every 100 attacks, you'd get hit 30 times but 10 of them would get blocked by the shield (20 total).

An otherwise unarmoured person with shield (AC 12):
Hit 9/20, or 45%. 45 hits per 100 attacks.
With this rule, Ac10 = hit 11/20 (55%) but shield blocks 2 in 6 = 36.67% hits only. 55 hits per hundred reduced to 37.

Makes shields much more advantageous for lower AC people.

Hmm. Anyway, something like this could definitely give you a chance to use a "damage to armour" mechanic - say 5% cumulative chance of your shield breaking per time it saves you.

That's a good idea.

But we can make it simpler by;

as armor could block the attack that shield blocked in the first place, make shield more effective as you wear lighter armor with very simple mechanics.

in heavy armor shield gives +2 AC
in medium armor shield gives +3 AC
in light armor shield gives +4 AC
with no armor shield gives +5 AC

natural armor would be treated as light armor.