D&D 5E What requested rules change have you refused to change?

[James Gasik]

Some of my players showed me a Tiktok video about a DM who suggested giving out levels of exhaustion whenever a character drops to 0 hit points instead of death saves. Knowing how easily a character can be knocked down without really being able to do much about it, and how quickly exhaustion turns into "well I'm useless now" (plus how hard it is to get rid of exhaustion), I told them in no uncertain terms I thought this was a BAD IDEA.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The Dreaded Three Second Rule: When something action, adventure or combat related is about to happen or is happening you have exactly three seconds to state what your character will do for the round. Failure means your character stands their as a confused target.

The Cannot Rule: Should you waste even one second of game time asking for your character "CAN" do something, your character will be stunned and confused that round.

Hmm. No thanks.

 

[Blue]

Conjuration Component: To summon(call) a a creature or Create anything you need a small part of the creature or sample of the material.

How does this work in 5e? The DM picks the creature for all of the Conjure * spells in the PHB, the player only picks the number/CR. Are you actually giving the spell a big buff in that characters can effectively limit the choices to the one they want by limiting what material components they are carrying?

 

[delericho]

I won't roll for hit points. I had a years-long streak of really bad luck when every hit point roll turned up a '1', so I'm pretty much done with that one. If a DM insists on it then I'll have a choice to make: is this game expected to be sufficiently good that I'm willing to cheat to play?

 

[Bagpuss]

The DM picks the creature for all of the Conjure * spells in the PHB, the player only picks the number/CR.

Where does it say that?

It sounds like a very odd interpretation of "The GM has the creatures’ statistics."

I mean technically if you really only got to choose " One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower" as the option and not the actual beast summoned, the GM could summon one CR 0 Frog and still meet your request.

You pick the actual beast you want, and the GM just has those statistics because they have the MM.

 

[Bagpuss]

I won't roll for hit points. I had a years-long streak of really bad luck when every hit point roll turned up a '1', so I'm pretty much done with that one.

Our general house rule is you get to roll for hit points, but you always get a minimum of the average the dice would roll rounded down. You still end up with situations where the party rogue has more hit points than the fighter however.

 

[tetrasodium]

Where does it say that?

It sounds like a very odd interpretation of "The GM has the creatures’ statistics."

I mean technically if you really only got to choose " One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower" as the option and not the actual beast summoned, the GM could summon one CR 0 Frog and still meet your request.

You pick the actual beast you want, and the GM just has those statistics because they have the MM.

I think that's one of those cases where Crawford made a ruling somewhere based on text that does not exist.

Edit:having the statistics is not inclusive to or excluding to making the choice, "natural language" strikes again

 

[dave2008]

I assume this is to speed up the game, but is it fun?

I can't speak for this specific rule, but we have a requirement to resolve your turn in 30 seconds: Declare action and make any rolls (attack and damage) required. We did this to speed things up but found it actually made the game more fun too. Combats feel much more energetic now and everyone pays attention because it all happens so fast.

 

[Bagpuss]

I think that's one of those cases where Crawford made a ruling somewhere based on text that does not exist.

So for Conjure Elemental

Choose an area of air, earth, fire, or water that fills a 10-foot cube within range. An elemental of Challenge rating 5 or lower appropriate to the area you chose appears in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of it.

The DM has the elemental's Statistics.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th Level or higher, the Challenge rating increases by 1 for each slot level above 5th.

So the GM could just pick a CR 1 elemental even if you burned a 8th level slot on the spell. Nice Stupid idea.

 

[Stormonu]

In one of my games, a player wanted to build his character with the optional rule in Tasha's that allows a player to choose ability score bonuses regardless of race. I don't allow that rule and will keep using the 5.0 races in my game even if we shift to One D&D in the future.

Yeah, the only one that comes to mind for me is the floating ASI rules in Tasha's. Just not ever going to use them.