D&D 5E What are your favorite/non-favorite house rules?

[Sadras]

1. Incorporeal creatures ignore the benefits of armour (except the +x component)
2. Exhaustion at 0hp
3. Roll Death Saves once rescue attempt made or at the end of combat (whichever is sooner)
4. Recovery mechanic of all SR and LR powers tied to exhaustion
5. Coup De Grace allowed on those paralyzed
6. Exhaustion condition prohibits HD recovery
7. Casters can alter spells midday, but it requires much time (idea stolen from Dungeon/Dragon article)
8. Flanking provides a +1 benefit
9. Casting rituals costs 1HD
10. Inspiration treated as a Fate point by DM

 

[Blue]

My favorite example of 'critical fail' came when one player rolled a '1' with a bow and arrow, and I as DM told him "You hold the arrow tightly and shoot the bow at your enemy. It wobbles into the square ahead of you and falls to the ground." This was an 'Intro to D&D' scenario and I did not want him to be totally hosed. Everybody got a laugh from the mental image. Next turn he stepped forward, picked up his bow, and resumed firing.

My "favorite" crit fail was where you had a chance of hitting a different target. First time D&D player (though RPG veteran) in the first encounter of a new campaign shot and a guard-turned-bandit, crit missed, and hit and killed the child near him.

Pathos. And the nickname Childslayer.

 

[Blue]

[1 - 10 snipped ]

So, which is your favorite? If 9 are going to be struck down, which do you want to stay? That's what this thread is about - what you find the best. And worst - what's your least favorite, if you've come ever across any that haven't worked for you.

 

[Sadras]

So, which is your favorite? If 9 are going to be struck down, which do you want to stay? That's what this thread is about - what you find the best. And worst - what's your least favorite, if you've come ever across any that haven't worked for you.

Crap - misread.
Favourite is the rather simple and intuitive rule that incorporeal creatures ignore the effects of armour.

Least favourite house rule
Hmmm...removing a spell from a spell list because I don't want x in the campaign. It irks me that I have to remove it. For instance I removed raise dead and resurrection in our Mystara campaign. I don't like doing it, but it messes with my world-building if I do not. I'm weird that way.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Favorite: Randomly roll for Race, Class, and Background. Roll 3-5 times and pick your favorite.

Good: Fixed stat array, no xp level via Milestones.

Least Favorite: Anything that's purpose is "Slow down power recovery, keep the players from having their spells/limited abilities".

 

[clearstream]

Least Favorite: Anything that's purpose is "Slow down power recovery, keep the players from having their spells/limited abilities".

It's interesting different table's preferences for different game balances. Like, a least favourite for me would be all-alpha-all-the-time, which is a consequence one sees when players always have spells/limited abilities up. I'm interested in sometimes-alpha, sometimes-attrition.

I'm not knocking the all-alpha approach. One benefit is that once that is the assumption it is hard for players to take further advantage of recovery rates. Also, for fluff-focused tables, it might be rather moot: perhaps their combats are always rare and epic.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Frankly it would have to be milestone leveling. Fought against the idea for a long time but I have pretty well concluded it’s the way I’ll go with any edition from now on.

 

[Coroc]

Favorite: max hit points at every level and max healing from spells and potions.

Runner-up: individual initiative and weapon speed modifiers to initiative and keying initiative off of Intelligence instead of Dexterity.

Least favorite: starting the campaign immobilized and/or changed to a wall and powerless to escape until the GM's best friend's PC came to the rescue leading a tribe of velociraptor-riding barbarians. That happened twice, back in like 1994 or 95. Two different GMs and unrelated campaigns, believe it or not.

Whew whew, ;P glad you did not get traumatized here, that sounds like "velociraptor- Conan" was the best friend of both DMs, haha good story.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Whew whew, ;P glad you did not get traumatized here, that sounds like "velociraptor- Conan" was the best friend of both DMs, haha good story.

I wish I was making it up. And somehow, neither of those guys gets the "worst GM I ever played under" award.

/derailment. I hope.

 

[Coroc]

I wish I was making it up. And somehow, neither of those guys gets the "worst GM I ever played under" award.

/derailment. I hope.

Yea but you did not confirm my speculation: Where those best friends one and the same or two unrelated people because then it would be almost a case for the X-files?