D&D 5E What House / 3rd Party / Optional Rule changed your game the most?

[Greg Benage]

Interesting. Do you only go down at death? Do hits still cause 2 failed death saves?

Yeah, we do incapacitated at 0 hp, stunned at one fail, unconscious at two fails. Then we use RAW for hits at 0 hp. They're not automatically critical hits until you're unconscious, so the "two failed death saves on a hit" rule is effectively irrelevant.

The most significant impact of the change is just "visuals": That healing word when you're at 0 hp gets you "off the ropes" and back in the fight -- you don't literally pop back up after getting knocked unconscious (unless you had two failed death saves). But it also introduces more subtle tactical changes. It makes retreating easier, since an incapacitated creature can still move. OTOH, as a DM, I'm far more likely to continue attacking an incapacitated character than an unconscious one, and incapacitated characters can still defend themselves (no advantage or auto-crits). So, in actual play, I find I'm actually putting more "pressure" on the characters in combat.

 

[el-remmen]

Replaced Inspiration with Hero Points.
Everyone gets half level (rounded down) + 1 hero points. (For my group with fewer players I made this Level +1)

Spend a hero point to gain a +d6 to any roll you make, to change a death save fail into a success, or use a bonus action to give an ally you can see and that can hear you a d6 they have to use within 10 minutes (or it is lost).

Hero points are only regained when XP is awarded or when the DM awards one for heroic action - but you can never have more than your max so you are encouraged to use them.

These d6 become d8 at 10th level and d10 at 15th. We keep a plate of special "hero point dice" in the center of the table.

 

[Horwath]

over various campaigns;

bonus feat at 1st level seem most popular, who would have guessed?

potions as Bonus action,

you can spend a HD when drinking healing potion or getting healed by healing spell. To make spells scale a little depending on who is getting healed. As you get limited number of HDs per long rest is keeps daily "pool" of healing the same.
you can spend 1 HD per spell level that healed you or per rank of healing potion.

short rest 5mins, 3x per long rest

exhaustion gives: -1 to all d20 rolls, -5ft speed(min of 5ft speed), -1 AC and -1 to all DCs per level

when you go to 0 HP you gain 1 exhaustion level. These exhaustion levels cannot go over "-5" (that is, they cannot kill you), these exhaustion levels are removed on short rest or with lesser restoration spell.

 

[Stormonu]

Flanking grants advantage - three-on-one or worse combats see targets go down quickly. It makes positioning a great deal more important and I’ve seen several times PCs disengaging to reposition and get out of a bad swarming.

Firing INTO a melee is at disadvantage. A natural roll of 1 in such a situation, of course, indicates possibly hitting an ally (if the non-disadvantaged die would have hit). Likewise, trying to perform a ranged attack while in melee grants the enemy an Opportunity Attack, unless you have the Archery/Thrown weapon style or Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter or Spell Sniper feat.

No multiclassing. I have a couple custom classes and subclasses to emulate aspects of multiclassing, but I just find 5E multiclassing an extreme pain in the neck.

 

[el-remmen]

Firing INTO a melee is at disadvantage. A natural roll of 1 in such a situation, of course, indicates possibly hitting an ally (if the non-disadvantaged die would have hit). Likewise, trying to perform a ranged attack while in melee grants the enemy an Opportunity Attack, unless you have the Archery/Thrown weapon style or Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter or Spell Sniper feat.

Heh. We do this. I didn't even realize it was a house rule.

 

[toucanbuzz]

So some actions are inherently faster than others, which governs your place in initiative?

Could you provide some details? This sounds like what one of my friends is trying to create and I would love to hear about your rule.

Can I get more detail on this?

Attached is what we use. It's been subjected to years of game sessions, so it's become habit for my gamers, who don't need a reference sheet anymore. I attached the "handout" as I have a custom DM screen where I can put inserts for players to see in the front 4 slots. The primary purpose was to make combat more unpredictable, and therefore exciting, because turn order is not guaranteed. Secondary purpose was to speed up combats (accomplished because all 5 players, and the DM, are deciding what to do at the same time rather than one at a time, AND they know their character abilities...we've had rounds where the declaration phase took roughly a "real" round of 6 seconds). Tertiary purpose was to empower players so their choices impact initiative.

We combine this with the 3rd edition Attack of Opportunity rule that if you don't have "reach" (a polearm master weapon or 10'+) and enter the threat zone of someone who does, they can use their reaction to take an AoO. This makes it trickier to close ranks with a dagger if someone has a spear.

 

[beancounter]

No multiclassing unless the player has a compelling backstory that would lead to multiclassing.

No naturally flying PCs.

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

All of 5E Hardcore Mode by Runehammer. It changed the game in so many ways. I can never go back.

 

[BookTenTiger]

All of 5E Hardcore Mode by Runehammer. It changed the game in so many ways. I can never go back.

Can you elaborate on this? What are some of the changes?

 

[aco175]

We took on the rule of drinking a healing potion was a bonus action where you roll the dice and if you used your action you got full HP for the potion. It allowed some of the PCs to feel like they can do more and take more chances. The cleric did not always need to be the back-up. That, and they always went looking in town for healing potions at lower levels.