D&D 5E Tweaking 5E: Your knobs, dials and switches.

[CubicsRube]

I am not familiar with that game?


Yes allowing people to spend hit dice when they recieve healing or inspiration hp sort of a flip flop of the core of healing surge use but in a good way by putting it in the hands of the one healed is cool as that demonstrates its your resource not the one doing the healing or inspiring. (It is a better healing surge rule than the one they put in the 5e DMG - which really represents second wind not healing surges)

Spending hd as an exertion to push skill use towards accomplishing the extraordinary is a different idea which broadens it beyond just healing (though over-exerting damaging you and hd heals the damage is one way of seeing it)

AiME is adventures in middle earth. It's the 5e compatible version of The One Ring (official lord of the rings rpg).

Yws in fact i might make my next campaign that there are no healing potions, rather tonics one can imbibe to immediately use a hit die to heal.

Sort of like a short rest in a bottle.

 

[Garthanos]

AiME is adventures in middle earth. It's the 5e compatible version of The One Ring (official lord of the rings rpg).

Yws in fact i might make my next campaign that there are no healing potions, rather tonics one can imbibe to immediately use a hit die to heal.

Sort of like a short rest in a bottle.

Energy drink... or mountain dew

Spending hd as an exertion to push skill use towards accomplishing the extraordinary is a different idea which broadens it beyond just healing (though over-exerting damaging you and hd heals the damage is one way of seeing it)

Idea allow overexerting to provide a boost on an attempted skill use overexerting causes hp loss (but can come off of temp hit points so a Inspiring leader can help you do stunts as can being rallied ) a critical success might allow it to be done without losing hit points in the first place.

And If one is using a HD recovery on a heal, one could allow a success to be exhilarating and let one spend HD to overcome the effect of the overexertion.

 

[CleverNickName]

I cobbled together all of the variants and optional rules in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, and put them into a single list (okay okay, I didn't do it...but the kind folks over at this website did). Here's what my "dashboard" looks like.

Ability Score Generation (PHB 13): 4d6 Method
Alignment (PHB 122): On
Action Options (DMG 271): Off
Alternate Epic Boons (DMG 230): On
Cleaving Through Creatures (DMG 272): Off
Crafting Magic Items (DMG 128): Off
Encumbrance (PHB 176): On
Equipment Sizes (PHB 145): On
Fear and Horror (DMG 266): Off
Feats (PHB 165): On*
Firearms and Explosives (DMG 267): On
Healer's Kit Dependency (DMG 266): On
Healing Surges (DMG 266): Off
Hero Points (DMG 267): Off
Hitting Cover (DMG 272): Off
Honor (DMG 264): Off
Initiative Variants (DMG 270): Side Initiative
Injuries (DMG 272): Off
Inspiration (PHB 125, DMG 240): On
Loyalty (DMG 90): Off
Massive Damage Variant, aka System Shock (DMG 273): Off
Milestone XP: On
Mixing Potions (DMG 140): On
Morale (DMG 273): Off
More Difficult Magic Item Identification (DMG 136): On
Multiclassing (PHB 163): On*
Piety (DMG 23): Off
Planar Effects (DMG 50): On
Playing on a Grid/Using Minis (DMG 250): On
Players Award Inspiration (DMG 241): Off
Plot Points (DMG 269): Off
Proficiency Check Variants (DMG 263): Off
Proficiency Dice (DMG 263): Off
Renown (DMG 129): Off
Rest Variants (DMG 267): Gritty Realism
Sanity (DMG 264): Off
Scroll Mishaps (DMG 140): On
Skills with Different Abilities (PHB 175): On
Slow Natural Healing (DMG 267): Off; not needed with the Rest Variant I use
Spell Points (DMG 288): Off
Training to Gain Levels (DMG 131): Off
Variant Backgrounds (PHB 130): On
Variant Human Traits (PHB 31): On
Wands that Don't Recharge (DMG 141): On
-----
*at low levels only. This switch turns Off at 5th level...but honestly, I've never had to enforce them. My players tend to grab a feat for their first ASI and then buff their stats for the rest of their careers. And only one player has ever wanted to multiclass.

 

[Blue]

You can learn to read a captured spellbook rather than copying each spell over into your own book.

Heh, I always took this as base. After all, it is your spell book now. Never saw that you could only have one, and I've had wizards in earlier editions copy all of their spells into a second and leave it back at home base in case their got captured or had their spellbook stolen.

But yeah, this is a good thing to make sure your players are on the same page as you, so call it our regardless if it's a house rule or not.

 

[D1Tremere]

1: I award a point of inspiration at the beginning of each session (and throughout for playing up bonds/traits/etc.). These points reset at the beginning of each new session. Inspiration can be spent to automatically succeed at any one roll or task.

2: I do not roll for random encounters, and I only check for fatigue if the circumstances really demand it. These mechanics tend to bog the game down in my opinion. I use encounters when I feel the circumstances warrant it, and in the way most relevant to the narrative.

3: I structure my game around scenes and set piece encounters, kind of like a movie.

4: I use the optional rules for buying/selling magic items, with a more forgiving mechanic in the players home city (That being the city of Sharn from Eberron, which I have placed in the forgotten realms along the sword coast).

5: Along with access to wide scale low level Eberron magic I have also adopted the Acquisition Incorporated rules. This makes some cities feel like traditional fantasy while others have entered a somewhat magicoindutrial era.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am curious how folks go about changing 5E to suit their personal tastes. What optional rules do you use? What "dials" and "switches" do you incorporate to change the the way the game plays or feels? What rules do you toss out completely, change or double down on.

I'm no so interested in major overhauls of the 5E core assumptions or systems. Rather I am curious how those that have a problem here or there with 5E, or prefer a certain playstyle that isn't quite supported, make 5E work for them.

Thanks.

I've always had only two complaints about 5e: Guidance and druids armor "restrictions". Considering there are thousands of game elements/rules, these make up something like the 0,02% of the edition, which goes a long way telling how much 5e actually IS according to my tastes.

I manage possible abuses of Guidance simply by remembering that it has a time limit, and deciding that whatever action you want to benefit from the spell has to be entirely contained in that time limit. In addition, I don't require an "action" for Knowledge checks to remember information, so they won't normally benefit from the spell. The RAW doesn't specify one way or the other, so the interpretation is not even a rule change.

For druids, I consider the Sage Advice answer valid when it says what happens when a druid wears "forbidden" armor: nothing. Perhaps the druid feels ashamed, or other druids might disapprove and even forsake her, but this belongs to the realm of roleplaying and depends on the campaign setting, so once again there is no actualy rule change here but rather an interpretation.

I have not used any DMG optional rules yet, but if I ever get to run a game with my Rokugan 5e conversion, there will be effectively quite many, such as Honor and Taint rules, as well as lots of alternative classes and characters material anyway.

 

[S'mon]

"Nearly impossible" DC is 30 in 5e, not 35.

My son loved it when his epic barb-20 got to str 30 (actually 26 plus legendary gauntlets giving +4) and auto succeeds on dc 30 athletics checks.

The 5e gm should not be setting dcs outside the 5-30 range; a 5e 30 is harder than a 4e 42 given level bonus with prof is +6 not +20 (half level +5 in 4e). Indeed I cap AC and save dcs at 30 too, and I cap roll bonus at +20 also. I find with the 5e numbers this works best, eg a tarrasque only has AC 25.

 

[CapnZapp]

Let me see if I follow, the current rules are:

1) short rests allow you to burn HD to restore HP
2) long rests give you all your HP
3) long rests give you half your burned HD back

You are removing rule 2, and amending rule 3 to restore all (not half)?

Correct!

 

[CapnZapp]

Yws in fact i might make my next campaign that there are no healing potions, rather tonics one can imbibe to immediately use a hit die to heal.

Sort of like a short rest in a bottle.

Caution: this makes healing work like 4E.

I think this works even worse in ME than D&D.

Reason: if you need to spend something intrinsic to a specific character (such as his Hit Die), each and every character needs to put herself in harm's way during the adventuring day.

Otherwise that character's HD goes unused; the party loses out on a quarter of its most precious resource (capacity for healing).

This is a very steep price to pay. Many gamers will feel their scouts, snipers, or wise men to be compelled to enter combat to soak up some damage so as not to waste that character's Hit Dice.

To me, that really ruined 4E. Having an archer or healingwoman should be about staying away from monsters, not taking "your" share of the incoming damage.

5E did a great thing when it broke the connection between healing and characters, so (in the extreme case) a single character could soak ALL the damage, and yet the party's combined healing capacity could still be brought to bear.

Zapp

PS. Had to skip a few pages, apologies if this is old news.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Caution: this makes healing work like 4E.

I think this works even worse in ME than D&D.

Reason: if you need to spend something intrinsic to a specific character (such as his Hit Die), each and every character needs to put herself in harm's way during the adventuring day.

Otherwise that character's HD goes unused; the party loses out on a quarter of its most precious resource (capacity for healing).

This is a very steep price to pay. Many gamers will feel their scouts, snipers, or wise men to be compelled to enter combat to soak up some damage so as not to waste that character's Hit Dice.

To me, that really ruined 4E. Having an archer or healingwoman should be about staying away from monsters, not taking "your" share of the incoming damage.

5E did a great thing when it broke the connection between healing and characters, so (in the extreme case) a single character could soak ALL the damage, and yet the party's combined healing capacity could still be brought to bear.

Zapp

PS. Had to skip a few pages, apologies if this is old news.

While that is somewhat true of 4e, it isn't a requirement of such a system. Simply give characters that are meant to be on the front line sufficient surges to last a full adventuring day with them. Then the back line doesn't need to use theirs outside of emergencies (a monster got past the front line).

Although, personally, I found that to be more of a feature than a bug in 4e. Turtling is neither particularly interesting nor heroic. Even Hawkeye, despite being a sniper and on the weak end of the Avengers, mixes it up from time to time.

AiME is adventures in middle earth. It's the 5e compatible version of The One Ring (official lord of the rings rpg).

Yws in fact i might make my next campaign that there are no healing potions, rather tonics one can imbibe to immediately use a hit die to heal.

Sort of like a short rest in a bottle.

Keep in mind that if you replace healing in 5e with hit dice, characters will need additional hit dice.