D&D 5E Your Favorite 5e Houserule

[aco175]

We let players roll HP and keep half if they roll low. So if the fighter rolls the d10 and gets a 2, he gets 5 instead. We tend to have a lot of combat though.

 

[The Green Hermit]

13th Age Mook rules work well. Because of the way bounded accuracy works you don't even need to have a special monster category.

This allows Fighters to wade through hordes of goblins at higher levels.



This gives a fairly good simulation of the 1e Fighter's ability to attack a number of 1hd monsters equal to their level. If the last part above bothers you just say the monster has to be within plausible range to take damage.

I might try that for when we have several kobolds/cultists surrounding us.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Spellcasting Ability Score variant: At character creation OR multiclassing, spellcasters (except wizards, INT only) can pick one of two spellcasting ability scores to cast from (ex. Sorcs can pick CHA or CON; Clerics and Paladins can pick CHA or WIS, Bards and Warlocks can pick CHA or INT). This just opens up different character concepts players may wish to play.

Point Buy with Feats: Characters are created with 27 point buy. A player can pay 4 points to start with a feat.

Flanking: a creature gets +1 to their attacks for each adjacent ally to a hostile creature. If a creature (up to size Large) is surrounded on 4 sides, each attacking creatures gets advantage.
If creatures are back-to-back with an ally, or put their back to a wall/object, they cannot be flanked or surrounded. Gives a little more tactical movement to melee combats and encourages moving around, while keeping the attack bonuses within BA.

If a creature is flanked and another PC gets within 5', that PC also gets advantage at my table. I really like your idea of adding a +1, though. Is that on top of advantage, or instead of advantage? I can see it working on top of advantage, because the more they are surrounded, the more perilous their situation is.

 

[Weiley31]

13th Age Mook rules work well. Because of the way bounded accuracy works you don't even need to have a special monster category.

This allows Fighters to wade through hordes of goblins at higher levels.



This gives a fairly good simulation of the 1e Fighter's ability to attack a number of 1hd monsters equal to their level. If the last part above bothers you just say the monster has to be within plausible range to take damage.

How does the 13th age Mook rules go? Sounds fun.

 

[Don Durito]

How does the 13th age Mook rules go? Sounds fun.

The original post (post 80) has the rules in a quote box that disappeared in the reply.

 

[Weiley31]

Oh I get it, the number of mooks is the hp of the group: so 14 goblin mooks would be 14 hp, and dealing 7 kills 7 of em.

 

[Helldritch]

You guys might be interested in this

Explanation is found here: How to F$%& CR: A Practical Example of Monster Building the Angry Way

(c) by AngryGM

Interesting article. A bit complicated at first glance but workable. I for my self, think that most "normal" that is non-solo monsters are fine. It is the boss/leaders/solo monsters that are a bit weak on the level that they should be. Why would a hobgoblin warlord go for a lower armor than his troops and no shield? It makes no sense. Why would a veteran be stuck in splint mail and no shield while he's fighting with a long sword? Hey! He fights with it as a two handed sword... why not use a two handed sword then... Better stick to plate and shield. The Veteran is now scarier. An AC 20 foe is much more threatening than a foe with an AC 17. I strongly practice the: "what the players have, the monster can too. What the monsters get, the players can get it too." but only when it comes to equipment.

 

[Don Durito]

Oh I get it, the number of mooks is the hp of the group: so 14 goblin mooks would be 14 hp, and dealing 7 kills 7 of em.

No. Not quite. That would be extreme carnage.

Say you have a group of 5 Goblins. They have 25 hit points total. For every 5 points damage you remove one goblin. So if three of the goblins are engaged with a fighter and he attacks one and rolls 12 damage you remove two goblins and remove 12 hp total from the group pool. If someone then does 3 hp to another goblin you will remove another one, even if it was nowhere near the Fighter at the time.

This means that theoretically a Figher can take out goblins that are nowhere near him with a single melee attack. You can simply overrule that if it makes no sense - but I usually handle it as a morale issue. The goblin at the other side of the room runs screaming when it sees what happens to its allies.

 

[Helldritch]

No. Not quite. That would be extreme carnage.

Say you have a group of 5 Goblins. They have 25 hit points total. For every 5 points damage you remove one goblin. So if three of the goblins are engaged with a fighter and he attacks one and rolls 12 damage you remove two goblins and remove 12 hp total from the group pool. If someone then does 3 hp to another goblin you will remove another one, even if it was nowhere near the Fighter at the time.

It's almost like a swarm... I fail to see the advantage of doing it this way but at the same time it can be very theatrical.

 

[Don Durito]

It's almost like a swarm... I fail to see the advantage of doing it this way but at the same time it can be very theatrical.

It just makes tracking easier. You don't need to worry about the exact hit points of every individual mook. You just need to know the thresholds at which you will remove one from play.

You still have action economy issues. There are a couple of ways you can handle this - you can lower mook damage. (Say to the minimum number of the die roll) or you can limit the number of attacks - so a group of five mooks may make only 3 attacks between them. (But if not attacking can be assumed to take the help action.)