D&D 5E What rule(s) do you tend to ignore?

[cbwjm]

Gosh, this is going to be a long list, as there are a ton of things that I think exist in the game for no good reason, or should in exist in the game with no good reason not to.

Here are the main ones I can think of right now:

1. Ignore most spell components. I still make it so people can't do Verbal components in areas of the Silence spell and similar effects, make sure that they buy expensive material components (sometimes allowing them to do it on the spot, just expending the equivalent gold and being done with it), and other main parts of spell components, but I ignore the whole "you can do spells with Somatic and Material Components (no cost, not consumed) with both hands full as long as one of the hands is holding a spellcasting focus, but not if there aren't any material components (no cost, not consumed)", and I also typically allow players to use material components if they have both hands full as long as the item is on their person. Why in the name of Wizards of the Coast does a spell component need to be in your hands to be consumed? It's not for any balancing reasons, and it's not for any logical reasons (it's magic! surely you can access the magic of your material components that are in your pocket/backpack just as easily as when you're holding them, right!?!?), and it's not for any reason that improves the fun of the game (seriously, who enjoys having to keep track of whether or not they have the hands to access a spell component? No one in their right mind would think that this improves their campaign).
2. Ignore most ammunition (and their weight). Of course, I keep track of magical ammunition, and ammunition for rare weapons (firearms, futuristic weapons, etc), but generic, bog-standard arrows? Who the freak wants to mark down an arrow every time the Archer fires one? Who wants to factor in the weight of every arrow they're carrying? I can understand this for some survival-based campaigns and worlds like Dark Sun, but not for the average D&D campaign.
3. Ignore the weight of gold, as well as encumbrance. Seriously, nothing is more boring than being slowed down by money. Nothing. Also, I do make sure the individual PCs have enough strength to carry the items they have, but I don't use encumbrance. IMO and IME, it just slows down the game and doesn't add anything positive in exchance.
4. A ton of official rulings from Sage Advice/rules from the game that I find nonsensical/not adding to the fun of the game (Goodberry Life Clerics, Magic-Missile being one roll, magical darkness only blocking darkvision if it's explicitly stated, druids not being capable of wearing metal armor/shields but being able to use metal weapons, Magic Initiate and similar Pre-Tasha's feats and races not being able to cast their automatic spells with spell slots from their class, etc).
5. Classes/Subclasses/Class-Options that should get the current version of Bladesinger's Extra Attack not getting it for no reasons based on flavor or balance, like Armorer/Battle-Smith Artificers, Blade-locks (I limit it to exclude Eldritch Blast shenanigans), etc.

Some of these I also follow. From 4, I also don't allow healing from goodberry to benefit from the life cleric's ability. It's not really that overpowered but I feel like it is something that should apply directly to a healing spell like cure wounds or healing word rather than something that you cast to use later. That magic missile ruling didn't make it into the compendium so as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist, not that I'd allow it if it did since rolling once has never been the way that magic missile worked, not changing it now.

I don't really worry about encumbrance either, I just allow the PCs to carry what seems reasonable, though thinking about it, the halfling barbarian is a literal pin cushion of weapons.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I have been ignoring alignment for more than 40 years now.

 

[billd91]

I try to ignore the ones that people get super nit-picky about, being a DM who takes a dim view of rules lawyers. As a result, I don't often pay a lot of attention to Sage Advice these days.
I do, however, like to lean into D&D racial tropes, so I'm not very keen on the Tasha stat bonus changes and will probably not incorporate them into games I run.

 

[Shiroiken]

We don't normally ignore certain rules, but we've houseruled a lot of them!

Inspiration is called before the roll. We forget and just allow a reroll.

Yeah, we forgot early on, and discovered we liked it much better that way. We've basically houseruled it into the Lucky feat instead, unless a player specifically wants advantage (i.e. for Sneak Attack).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Actually I think they can already do that with magic initiate because of the wording of the feat - "......you learn that spell......"

If the spell is learned that means you know it and can cast it with any slots.

RAW I think you can't cast many racial spells with slots because it does not say you learn the spell for example Drow magic: "When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Faerie Fire spell once ....."

At least that is my understanding of the RAW.

A spell has to be both known AND prepared to cast it. Some spellcasting classes have all their known spells for that class prepared automatically, but that doesn't make spells they learn in other ways automatically prepared. Remember that spellcasting is treated as a class feature which then only applies to spells granted through that class. So generally pre-Tasha's feats and racial abilities that grant spells don't let characters actually prepare the spell for casting using the spell slots granted by one or more classes.

Magic Initiate is a slight exception if you are a memorized spellcaster because you choose a class to know and cast the spells as. Let's say a character is a Sorcerer, because they're the one so starved for spells known that maybe this is actually worth doing. If the Sorcerer takes Magic Initiate for a Sorcerer spell then they know that spell as a Sorcerer spell. Because your class's spellcasting feature involves automatically having all the spells you know for that class prepared the Magic Initiate spell is then compatible with your spell slots.

In other words the pre-Tasha's approach to these feats was needlessly complicated, to say the least, being based on a hyper-technical and esoteric understanding of how spellcasting class features worked that didn't really jive with how most people playing the game conceptualized their use of spells. It sucks, and I'll be glad to see it gone when they inevitably revise the older materials.

 

[Neonchameleon]

1. Ignore most spell components.

Huh? Ignoring almost all spell components is the point of both a spell component pouch and a spellcasting focus.

1. Classes/Subclasses/Class-Options that should get the current version of Bladesinger's Extra Attack not getting it for no reasons based on flavor or balance, like Armorer/Battle-Smith Artificers, Blade-locks (I limit it to exclude Eldritch Blast shenanigans), etc.

This I can agree with

 

[Weiley31]

A lot of the really minor fiddy bitty stuff. Like equipping a shield, drawing your sword/weapon, and putting on armor. I think stuff like that taking an action is stupid and takes the heroic fantasy fiction out of the picture. Spell Components are mostly handled through Component Pouches/Belts but I can probably see the whole rarer Material Component, aspect being consumed, still being in.

I allow multiple free actions.

Its a usual suspect, but Encumbrance tracking is out too. Stuff dealing with it, like Powerful Build, either just allows ya to easily move things/take less time and weighs in via rping/social more.

Racial Spells can be powered by Spell Slots. It doesn't make sense how that rule came in and doesn't retroactively apply now as an errata. says the guy who will ignore Errata that nerfs things but accepts the Errata that buffs things.

Patron Spells not being automatically added and counting towards your spell limit. flipping stupid.

 

[Horwath]

Somatic components. We just use that you cannot use Somatic components if your hands are bind.
It's just to much hassle to track what weapon/shield every caster has in what round.

Rolling initiative after the surprise is over.

damage breaking concentration.

 

[Azuresun]

Object actions and encumbrance use the "don't remove the urine" rule. Drawing two weapons, fine, carrying a statue round, less fine.

 

[el-remmen]

In my current game, encumbrance works like this: everyone is carrying a reasonable amount of stuff, except the barbarian with 20 Str who they give all the heavy stuff to carry and then he complains that he has to drop it if combat breaks out or when I finally say "You're carrying how much?" and they have to decide to leave some behind and/or spread it out more.

I don't worry about the numbers unless there is a disagreement about it - but generally we just eyeball what is reasonable. Recently, the party left behind a huge pile of 1000s of copper pieces they found because it was just too much to carry and not worth it from their point of view - though we made a joke about stopping the dungeon crawl to roll pennies to bring them to the bank.