G
ghostofchristmaspast
Guest
This is a small collection of rule-fixes and houserules I have come up with from my limited experience. I would like to apologize for any mistakes language-wise as English isn't my Common language 
All ideas are welcome.
Spells:
1) Simulacrums cannot cast Simulacrum or Wish.
This one is pretty self-explanatory. This prevents the infamous infinite Simulacrum abuse.
2) Simulacrum cannot use class features, spells or abilities which have "one at the time" limitation.
They tend to include phrases like "until you use this feature again", "If you create a new one, the previous one ceases to function" or "If you cast this again, the old one disappears"etc. Thank you Hemlock for this one. This way your world will not be flooded with Transmuter stones, Undead Thralls etc.
3) Charmed or otherwise dominated creatures cannot cast Wish.
There is a two-fold benefit to this change. The Wish spell is a VERY powerful spell with an equally high cost attached to it. This fix is to prevent abuse by forcing someone else to cast Wish for you and have him face the backlash instead. It also protects your Wish from it being taken away by a mook with Dominate Person style effect.
4) Planar Binding cast time reduced to 30 minutes.
So your Magic Circle or Conjure Elemental doesn't run out before you finish casting it.
5) Any spell with the phrase such as "becomes permanent" changes to "becomes instantaneous" and can only be removed/reversed by the means of Wish.
This change is in order to make DnD more fun and make Dispel Magic a little less OP than it now is - if you use a level 9 spell to turn someone into a dog, you shouldn't be able to reverse it with a simple level 3 spell. This change overwrites the official errata.
6) Mordekainen's Sword - duration changed to 8 hours (no concentration).
[M]
Class Features:
7) Wizard: Empowered Evocation - with spells such as Scorching Ray the bonus applies to each ray.
This makes Evocation school blaster a little less poop then it now is. This change overwrites the official errata.
8) Wizard: Overchannel - cantrips on the Wizard spell list can be overchannelled for free, this doesn't count towards the spells overchannelled.
Same as 7. The errata made Evocation unplayable in comparison with Divination or Abjuration. This change overwrites the official errata.
9) Wizard: Minor Conjuration cannot be used to create spell components.
Prevents abuse. [M]
10) Wizard: Illusory Reality cannot be used to create spell components.
No you cannot Fabricate a real diamond from your temporary ones. [M]
11) Warlock: Create Thrall - you may assert fine control over your thrall, the thrall is friendly and obeys your commands even to the point of self-destruction.
As it written now, there is nothing that suggests that the thrall actually obeys you. Even if he can't harm you (charmed condition), he can simply walk to the nearest shrine and have Remove curse cast on him. RAW it's worse than Geas.
12) Sorcerer: Wild Magic Surge - change text to "Immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher, roll a d20."
As it is, there is only a 5% chance of wild surge happening after a DM tells you to which may be NEVER! Boring!
13) Ranger: Ranger's Companion has amount of Hit Dice equal to your level and it's hit point maximum is calculated accordingly.
No more useless Beast Master. A level 20 Ranger's Panther has 20d8+0 HP. (It can spend those Hit Dice just like everybody else of course.)
General
14) Having multiple damage resistances of the same type gives you immunity towards that particular type of damage.
See Dragon Masks.
Magic Items:
15) Temperate protects you from cold and hot weather only.
[M]
16) Ioun Stones cannot be broken/stolen while attuned.
Because it's so much fun to loose your legendary item to a low level thief or even an AoE!
Monsters
17) Monster Manual page 280 Sphynx lair action text changed to "The aging effect can be reversed with a greater restoration spell, but only within 24 hours of it occurring"
It makes no sense why age damage caused by Ghosts should be potentially permanent but the one done by the Shynx should not.
18) Monster Manual page 38 Centaurs count as Humanoids
Why do Mermaids (Merfolk) count as humanoids and poor Centaurs don't? They look more human to me. A lot of spells you would expect to influence them doesn't, this fixes that.
Not a Houserule (Clarifications mostly)
19) War Caster does not stack with Polearm Master
There has been an official update about this, but just to make sure. [M]
20) Feats and Ability score improvements count as class features (with the exception of variant Human class feature).
Makes Clone and Magic Jar more fun while also preventing abuse (I might go into detail in a different post). This is not an actual update to the rules.
21) Rolling 1 is not a fumble. Rolling 20 doesn't make you a God.
This is not as much as a change to rules as it is a friendly reminder.
[M] - thank you Mellored for your large post.
EDIT: Added a whole bunch of things, changed the order of stuff. Old numbers don't work any more.
All ideas are welcome.
Spells:
1) Simulacrums cannot cast Simulacrum or Wish.
This one is pretty self-explanatory. This prevents the infamous infinite Simulacrum abuse.
2) Simulacrum cannot use class features, spells or abilities which have "one at the time" limitation.
They tend to include phrases like "until you use this feature again", "If you create a new one, the previous one ceases to function" or "If you cast this again, the old one disappears"etc. Thank you Hemlock for this one. This way your world will not be flooded with Transmuter stones, Undead Thralls etc.
3) Charmed or otherwise dominated creatures cannot cast Wish.
There is a two-fold benefit to this change. The Wish spell is a VERY powerful spell with an equally high cost attached to it. This fix is to prevent abuse by forcing someone else to cast Wish for you and have him face the backlash instead. It also protects your Wish from it being taken away by a mook with Dominate Person style effect.
4) Planar Binding cast time reduced to 30 minutes.
So your Magic Circle or Conjure Elemental doesn't run out before you finish casting it.
5) Any spell with the phrase such as "becomes permanent" changes to "becomes instantaneous" and can only be removed/reversed by the means of Wish.
This change is in order to make DnD more fun and make Dispel Magic a little less OP than it now is - if you use a level 9 spell to turn someone into a dog, you shouldn't be able to reverse it with a simple level 3 spell. This change overwrites the official errata.
6) Mordekainen's Sword - duration changed to 8 hours (no concentration).
[M]
Class Features:
7) Wizard: Empowered Evocation - with spells such as Scorching Ray the bonus applies to each ray.
This makes Evocation school blaster a little less poop then it now is. This change overwrites the official errata.
8) Wizard: Overchannel - cantrips on the Wizard spell list can be overchannelled for free, this doesn't count towards the spells overchannelled.
Same as 7. The errata made Evocation unplayable in comparison with Divination or Abjuration. This change overwrites the official errata.
9) Wizard: Minor Conjuration cannot be used to create spell components.
Prevents abuse. [M]
10) Wizard: Illusory Reality cannot be used to create spell components.
No you cannot Fabricate a real diamond from your temporary ones. [M]
11) Warlock: Create Thrall - you may assert fine control over your thrall, the thrall is friendly and obeys your commands even to the point of self-destruction.
As it written now, there is nothing that suggests that the thrall actually obeys you. Even if he can't harm you (charmed condition), he can simply walk to the nearest shrine and have Remove curse cast on him. RAW it's worse than Geas.
12) Sorcerer: Wild Magic Surge - change text to "Immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher, roll a d20."
As it is, there is only a 5% chance of wild surge happening after a DM tells you to which may be NEVER! Boring!
13) Ranger: Ranger's Companion has amount of Hit Dice equal to your level and it's hit point maximum is calculated accordingly.
No more useless Beast Master. A level 20 Ranger's Panther has 20d8+0 HP. (It can spend those Hit Dice just like everybody else of course.)
General
14) Having multiple damage resistances of the same type gives you immunity towards that particular type of damage.
See Dragon Masks.
Magic Items:
15) Temperate protects you from cold and hot weather only.
[M]
16) Ioun Stones cannot be broken/stolen while attuned.
Because it's so much fun to loose your legendary item to a low level thief or even an AoE!
Monsters
17) Monster Manual page 280 Sphynx lair action text changed to "The aging effect can be reversed with a greater restoration spell, but only within 24 hours of it occurring"
It makes no sense why age damage caused by Ghosts should be potentially permanent but the one done by the Shynx should not.
18) Monster Manual page 38 Centaurs count as Humanoids
Why do Mermaids (Merfolk) count as humanoids and poor Centaurs don't? They look more human to me. A lot of spells you would expect to influence them doesn't, this fixes that.
Not a Houserule (Clarifications mostly)
19) War Caster does not stack with Polearm Master
There has been an official update about this, but just to make sure. [M]
20) Feats and Ability score improvements count as class features (with the exception of variant Human class feature).
Makes Clone and Magic Jar more fun while also preventing abuse (I might go into detail in a different post). This is not an actual update to the rules.
21) Rolling 1 is not a fumble. Rolling 20 doesn't make you a God.
This is not as much as a change to rules as it is a friendly reminder.
[M] - thank you Mellored for your large post.
EDIT: Added a whole bunch of things, changed the order of stuff. Old numbers don't work any more.
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