This is more of a role playing house rule but I love the “Scooby Snack” Rule. Basically Shaggy and Scooby were total cowards and didn’t wanna do anything but it only ever took 1 Scooby snack to get the to follow along with the play. So your character can be a coward/disagree with the action the rest of the group wants to take but it shouldn’t take more than one metaphorical “Scooby snack” to get you to follow the group. This keeps one person from dragging the whole party down because they don’t wanna do something.
When it comes to things like "flammable Grease," I have a rule at my table that's sort of like Rule of Cool: players can do The Thing for one encounter, because it's creative and fun, but it's not allowed to become a repeatable tactic. For example, the players were fighting some oozes that corroded weaponry and burned skin, and the party's wizard asked if they could use the Mold Earth cantrip to "make some dirt/stone gloves for the fighter to shield the fighter's hands from the acid." For that encounter only, Mold Earth became a Concentration cantrip, and the fighter got some protective punching gloves. It was a great way to save the fighter's weapons (and skin) from damage, and made for a memorable encounter. I like this approach because it both rewards creativity when it happens and encourages players to keep being creative in future.
I like your method, but I’m also leaning towards something I saw Brennan Lee Mulligan house rule while he was DMing Fantasy High. One of the players wanted to cast a spell, but wanted it to do something slightly different than rules as written, so he made her roll an Arcana check. I made that a house rule in my games as well. I set the DC higher if the spell is a higher level, or lower if the spell level is lower, and the change has to be within reason of the spell’s capabilities. So trying to use Mage Hand to lift something that’s 20 lbs instead of 5 is fine to roll for, but trying to use it to lift a huge boulder blocking the path? Nah. That way, players can always attempt to do cool stuff with their spells, but it’s not a guarantee that it’ll work.
Another potential balance for the grease-fire combo might be to make it hard to set the grease on fire. So a normal torch might not do it but a fireball spell would. Basically treating it like crude oil rather than gasoline. Similarly, there might be penalties as well as benefits. So it could burn with a heavy black smoke that provides a smokescreen or fills small dungeon rooms, which means players have to be careful of where, how and what they use it against.
I use repeated tactics as things that word gets out on and the enemies learn. Enemies learn to anticipate and protect against said tactics (as in the real world we learn tactics for defenses against things that start being used often, AND also use the same tactics against the PCs.
I run a very combat heavy campaign so I house rule, for healing potions, if you take an action you get the full benefit of the potion, but you can use a bonus action to drink it but then you have to roll up the HP gained. I also do group checks for very general things like looking around a room but only allow max of 2 PCs to roll if it's something specific. Keep up the good work.
In my game I introduced a potionbelt, that stores a maximum of 3 potions. You can drink any of those three as a bonus action yourself. If you want to feed it to someone else or you would like to drink the other potion that is still in your bag, that would take you an action. With this rule each player needs to think what potions he/she want's to equip and makes it a lot more interesting.
I do this as well although i limit it to standard, greater and superior healing potions only and it’s a great low level magical item to give out to players that won’t break the game.
About the roll dog piling: I don’t like olayers asking “can I roll a history check?” Or like they do in Critical Role “INSIGHT CHECK!” They should be asking “Is this something I would know?” Or “Do I believe this person?” The reason at my table I push for that style is it eliminates the piling on as it presents me as the DM an opportunity to bring up the fact that they might not even have to roll. They might obviously know the information based on their character backstory, or someone with a high enough passive insight can see through the deception. Or I give them a “Does anyone else want to assist them?” with whatever task they’re doing and I might even just give advantage as is they’re using the Help action. Though, there are some occasions where the idea of “Ok, get out of the way, I’ll do it!” can work and I’ll allow at least a minor level of piling on as that’s something that happens in real life too depending on the situation. But those are usually more physical actions and less perception or insight style checks. This got a bit ramble-y, but I hope I was clear lol
Some of my house rules as a dm are: I always use standard array, I just think it makes for a more even experience between players and everyone has one great ability and one bad one. Players can't cast enchantment spells on each other or use persuasion, deception, or intimidation on other players because it's led to pretty bad and abusive scenarios. I have a more robust frightened condition that includes fight, flight, and freeze. In contesting rolls, saving throws, DC, AC, etc... rolls, in a tie the defender always wins. I also basically use the same ruling to prevent dice check dog piles. My most controversial thing I do is that some enemies don't have hit points and are instead tracked by rounds and I let the PC that has the story connection to the bad guy get the killing blow.
As a beginner DM who got into DnD like 4 months ago (because of CR), you're probably my favorite channel on TTRPGs. I really like the way you explain that's good for beginners and pros alike. Great content as always
I’ve been a player in my Dad’s D&D games for nearly 20 years and one of his house rules is something I’ve always liked. Every player character can have up to three potions of any kind held in a easily accessible pouch and consuming one of them is a bonus action. However, you have to have which ones are in the pouch written down beforehand and if you want to drink a potion that’s not in the pouch, it’s an action because you need to look through your backpack, bag of holding, etc. for it for a few seconds before drinking it. Whether or not you’re feeding the potion doesn’t matter just whether it’s one of the three easy to reach ones.
With Held Spells, the reasoning is that there are spells that are reactions because they are fast enough to be cast as a reaction. Just like you have to quicken a spell in order to cast it as a bonus action. I also don't like having to spend the slot if something doesn't happen immediately, my house rule is that you can hold it indefinitely but you are concentrating and you have to make a concentration check to hold it at the start of your turn and it uses one of your hands.
As a new DM I've been having some troubles setting or defining my own house rules so this video was pretty helpful with helping me shape my own. I've really appreciated your videos recently and how concise they are and for what it's worth they've made my entry into the D&D "Scene" a lot easier and a lot less daunting so thanks.
Another house rule I've come to be familiar with has to do with the invisibility spell. Now, I'm a novice (very novice) player and I only had my first dnd session a few months ago, but our DM is super experienced and great at explaining things. One time during a hangout call where we were all working on characters, he explained that the invisibility spell doesnt actually make you invisible, it just gives you an advantage on stealth checks. Which to all of us and him was ridiculous. In all the sessions he runs, he makes it so invisibility actually makes you *invisible*, not just stealthed with an advantage on your rolls. Super cool, and he runs amazing sessions ^^ Loved the vid!
Great video and thanks for having an explanation for each rule you have. The Inspiration one I actually have a 3 limit ruling. It makes them still valuable to my players but allows them to save up atleast a few for good moments
We use a similar healing potion rule: Drinking your own healing potion is a Bonus Action, administering a healing potion to another character is an Action.
I've also heard to rule of bonus to drink as normal and action to get full benefit. So bonus you roll the dice but full action you get max hitpoints back.
Generally I find this makes encounters too easy for characters. It should be hard to stay alive in a battle and there's a reason the party should include a healer if possible. At the very least they should have to spend a feat slot to get his ability.
@@toshomni9478 wow that's dumb and a way to ensure no one ever uses potions. People would really give the best solutions to something and someone out there will still think it's not good for some reason.
Using the "Rule of Cool" but at a cost, is a great idea. Probably my groups most controversial house rule though is holding initiative. Basically my groups been playing long enough together that we've always just said, you can hold your turn until after x player goes.
"The rules of this game are guidelines, not commandments. Don't let them get in the way of your group and your enjoyment this game... also, consent is a very important thing." - Armando, a great DM.
I'll argue with the held spells not being used up and offer a middle solution. Held spells can be concentrated on and maintained until the caster casts a different spell. While holding a spell a character must make concentration checks when they take damage. For every round after the 2nd round spent holding the spell a concentration check of dc 8+ the number of rounds the spell has been held must be made. Spells are actions because of the verbal, somatic and material components. Using a characters reaction to trigger the release of the spell is a fair trade off. Remember there is a feat that allows casters to cast any spell as a reaction for an attack of opportunity. Allowing characters to hold spells indefinitely and not use the slots leads to a party of wizards that immediately casts 5 fireballs on any potential threat appearing. To me spells work by conjuring up the powers and then releasing them. Holding a spell means you've got the powers accumulated and are waiting to release the spell when conditions are met or when you choose to. Don't want to waste the spell slot? then let the spell go (cast it). Try to argue that the spell slot shouldn't be used up? Then you never used an action to cast the spell, so your next turn your action is to cast the spell.
Inspiration: Odyssey of the Dragonlords 3PP campaign has a 5 point inspiration system that lets you do all sorts of stuff depending on how many inspirations you spend. My table paired it down to a 3 point system and took a bit of inspiration (pun intended) from Blades in the Dark: 1 Inspiration * Reroll any D20 roll your character makes 2 Inspiration * Can make any d20 roll a nat 20 instead * Legendary Resistance: After failing a saving throw, you can choose to succeed instead * Legendary Endurance: As a free action, you may spend a number of hit dice less than or equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining health as your normally would 3 Inspiration * Heroic Save: If a character within 5 feet of you is attacked or fails a Strength, Dex of Constitution saving throw, you can choose to suffer the effect instead of them. You have resistance to all damage until the start of your next turn. You can move yourself and/or the specified ally up to 10 feet, and only you are subject to Opportunity Attacks. * Legendary Action: You can choose, at the end of anyone's turn, to take a Legendary Action. You can take any standard action you can normally take, or move up to your movement speed * Defy Death: When you would drop to 0 hit points, you can instead choose to gain resistance to the triggering damage until the start of your next turn, or drop to 1 hp, whichever would leave you with a greater hit point total. Variable Inspiration * Flashback: You can spend inspiration to state that your character did something in the past to help in the current situation. This has to be something your character would logically do and depending on the impact can cost 1-3 inspiration. Mostly we've done the reroll and auto succeed so far, but the flashback idea is nice to have out there as an option if we ever find ourselves in a bind.
I'm on the cusp of introducing a meta-rule that essentially says "Discuss any new spell you want to use with me, between games if at all possible." It saves time adjudicating new (to me) spells at the table and mostly avoids the whole "I wouldn't have taken this otherwise" problem. So far I'm not DMing any games with full-spell-list casters, so it's a manageable workload.
my versions of these house rules : 1: standard array + 1d6 to spread out as desired 2: roll 1d4 + # to total HD (i.e. d6= 1d4+2, d8= 1d4+4, d10= 1d4+6, ect) 3: choose 3 potions to place on belt to use as a bonus action (self or on others) any potion not on belt slot uses action 4: readied spell carries over round to round, but if caster does any other action other than releasing the held spell slot is lost. 5: 1 inspiration point but inspiration refreshes on a long rest 6: same 7: same 8: same 9: grease IS flammable but burns for 1 round 1d6 fire damage per level of the spell slot used 10: raw BUT the caster can be on the inside of the square but still at the edge (also the cantrip thunderclap functions with caster at center and radiates outward) 11: same 12: same 13: same, within reason
Regarding drinking a potion as a bonus action; I’ve done something similar in the past. Characters were allowed to pay certain smiths to craft armor with a quick slot for a potion. This allowed them to drink a potion as a bonus action. Refilling the slot was an action, drinking a potion otherwise was an action, and feeding someone else a potion was also an action. So it achieved similar results but prevented players from abusing it in combat a bit.
The way I've long wanted to try Hit Point increases is: Each level (probably after rolling the new hit die), take *all* your hit dice and roll them. If the number is higher than your current Max HP, that's your new Max HP. This would provide a chance for characters to undo low rolls from previous levels, but wouldn't impact characters who got a bunch of high rolls (albeit there's a slight chance of rolling max). Could actually be a huge jump. But I really don't know how well this would work in practice. I also REALLY like Starfinder/Starjammer's Stamina pool. Kinda like a rechargeable shield, where the first half-ish of your health is recovered just by catching your breath (Short Rest... and a Resolve Point, measuring how depleted your reserves are getting), and it's only when you lose all your Stamina that you start taking actual damage that takes more effort to recover. I've even thought about using it in combination with a debuffs system where when your actual health gets below a certain level, you have a chance of acquiring a problem, like a sprained ankle or hurt fingers or whatever, that changes how you can participate in combat.
I also allow banking multiple points of inspiration, up to the player's maximum class level. I also try to identify per tier of play a signature ability that the player can use if they spend a certain number of inspiration points, that I develop with the player based on their background and class combination.
interesting ideas. I get why drinking a potion is more than an object interaction - you have to grab it, uncork it, swallow it, and there's also a delay in the potion taking effect. It's not as simple as swinging a sword or muttering a quick bonus action spell. That said - it's a bonus action in the campaigns I run as well. I think casting a full action spell is also more complicated than attacking... but if the person has War Caster, indicating that they've trained to pull together the mental energy to cast as a reaction, I can see myself saying they wouldn't waste a spell. For group checks, I try to play it by ear with nothing hard and fast. If the fiction makes sense that everyone is looking around or discussing a topic, I'd be inclined to let people pile on. It all depends if I'm asking, the player is asking, and the circumstances surrounding those choices.
Skill dog piling... that's a good idea. Give some space for people to jump in on the check before it's rolled. I'm going to use that in my game as well. Thanks!
These house rules make a lot of sense to me. The skill check dog pile is one that I’m definitely onboard with. The metagaming where the characters somehow know the outcome of a die roll was bad is the issue I have with it. Not a fan of it. :P
Well, there's knowing the outcome of a die roll and there's a person *seeing they did a bad job* at something or seeing their friend do a bad job at something and trying again. Like, if you're baking something, completely screw up, and burn the crap out of the thing you were making you don't just shrug and say "Welp, guess I gotta take this charcoal to the bake sale!" You start over and try again. Personally I find that in the majority of scenarios it takes more metagaming to try to twist and re-interpret a situation in a way where only a single attempt can be made.
@@mr.incorporeal7642 I understand what you’re saying. There are definitely times when a failure is clear and someone should feel free to jump in. I was thinking more of when it wouldn’t be obvious to the in-game characters. Like when someone rolls a 10 on a check, a perfectly average roll, but the players think a 10 might not be good enough in a gaming mindset to meet the DC the DM has in mind.
@@RPGtourguide yeah like, if you roll a 12 or 14 on an inspection check, that means your character is sure they would have found something if anything was there. if someone else tried to jump in after, they'd probably get pretty offended, like that other character doesn't trust them or think of them highly.
One house rule I’ve implemented that my players really like is that when an attack roll is exactly a target’s AC, that attack deals half damage. It sucks to know that you were a single digit away from getting out clean and at higher levels bosses have such high modifiers that AC is almost useless anyway so this really is for making the early game scramble for survival a little less stressful. Of course, this applies to enemies as well.
First time watcher here, but enjoy your videos so far. No clue why I can't see the comments, but here we go. Rolling for stats - so, my table now uses a rule an old 2E DM of mine used; for PCs, no stat is less than 10. his rule was, roll 4D6, drop the lowest, 10s get rerolled. Now, with all the technology etc as well as time to think on it, it's easier to do roll 1D7 and add 9. This guarantees you dont get less than a 10, but also caps the starting stats as the average per stat is 14. The other thing it does is limit how much rolling needs to happen; you only roll each stat ONCE, and you have your "basement". Hit Points - another house rule we use is a "basement" for HP. The average HP in the PHB is the minimum you can get. However, you can roll your Hit Die to see if you get better. If you get less than the basement, take the basement. Again, this allows for stronger characters, but also, it allows the lower HP characters to have a chance to soak one really bad hit, and still live. Spell Slots - same as your rule, love this Skill checks after a failed PC - yeah, we're guilty of this one. This is one reason why Skill Challenges are a thing (lots of homebrew videos talk about it), and also something AD&D got better than 5E. In AD&D, each class had skills they can use. If you didnt have those skills, you couldnt perform the task. So, if you wanted to pick a lock, only those who had the ability as part of their character could try. Sometimes a magic item would grant an ability (), but almost always it was because of the class you chose. Physical Dice rolls - if it's not intentional, and on the table, it doesnt count.
Ooh I really liked this video! I've been dm'ing for just under a year, and it turns out we have similar dm styles, which makes me feel confident! Thanks for sharing all this. I can't wait for the video about "spending resources" to allow the players to do extra exciting things.
I had to change Initiative. Too many years of cyclical Initiative made it boring. So Initiative is d12+Proficiency Die (eg, d12+d4) rolled at the start of each round. If a class gives you a bonus to Initiative, then you have that too. Anyone incapacitated/dying rolls last not first. Drinking a potion is a Bonus Action as you rule, but it can attract an Attack of Opportunity.
Good video. I also allow multiple inspirations, which I call "karma." And I let them both use it as a luck point AND spent it to alter the story in minor ways in their favor.
I love the Dungeon Coach method for rolling stats. Keeps it balanced while still rolling for stats instead of standard array. Love the few videos of yours I’ve watched so far!
There's a magic item that shows up in my campaigns a lot. It's a wizards hat with a few leather straps on the side, and some flexible tubing. It's basically a soda-drinking hat, but for potions. It can hold two potions, and you can use a bonus action to drink both of them.
I love your content! Recently found you and I'm eating up all your vids! Thanks man. My favorite house rule I use is At level one, roll for your level 2 HP. So level 1- roll for level 2 hp. Level 2- do NOT roll for hp. Level 3-20- roll for hp as normal. Nothing sucks worse than out right killing the 8 hp wizard from a stray goblin crit. And this rule feels better than fudging the dice for your level 1 party to survive.
I recall in an early campaign -- I think before we were into Pathfinder, maybe back as far as BESM? -- my ranger-type character got the ability to blind enemies with a called shot, or something like that. Its utility was powerful enough that I basically started using it all the time. At some point I grew to hate it because it felt like the Best Move and provided no variety, no choice in combat. So when a move becomes The Move, there's gotta be mechanics to walk it back enough to make things varied and interesting again. (I have no idea if we'd misunderstood the rules or whatever, I just recall that it was reliable and powerful to the point where nothing else was as useful as that one trick shot.)
We have the complete opposite policy on dice falling on the floor. My rule when I ran games in person was play it as it lies. As long as the die was somewhere it could be seen, you had to go with it. This did at one point lead to someone lifting up the end of the couch with two people sitting on it to check his result. That would have been a situation in which I would have allowed a reroll, but that player was dedicated.
Oh, these are some good rules. I like your compromise on the flammable Grease spell. One that I have (that I can't do right now because I'm playing on Roll20 and I don't know how to do the programming, if such a thing is possible), is that critical damage on critical hits, the first damage dice is automatically max damage, it's the second dice you roll to see how much extra damage you do. because there's nothing worse than getting a critical hit and rolling two 1s for damage.
This was SO HELPFUL! :D I've been a fairly long time player, but recently I've taken up the DM mantle for a group of family members and was looking for some helpful tips on rules and such so I can go over them in our session 0. Time to go binge all your other videos now for more inspiration. Lol
For flammable grease, There's the standard oil flask from the adventuring gear, it normally covers only 5 foot square, I rule that in instances of igniting grease, it's equivalent as 10 foot square of oil, which is fine since an oil flask costs only 1 silver piece, lasts 2 rounds when ignited, and can only deal 5 damage per round to any creature that steps on it
In my pathfinder games, I have similar rules as your first two. I have a range of total modifiers, and if the players total modifier is lower than that range they can reroll if they want, and if it's higher they must reroll. And I always give my players the full first hit die, no rolling.
I agree with all of these except maybe the dropped dice one (but I agree about if it hits the floor). Some more I've gathered from play: Sleeping in Armor? -- Taking off your armor is the last thing you do at night before going to bed, and putting on your armor is the first thing you do in the morning when waking up. If you want to sleep in your armor, you have to call it in advance. Hirelings -- In combat, each friendly combatant NPC must be controlled by a single player, and the NPC moves on the PC's initiative. A player cannot have more than 1 friendly combatant NPC under their control. (As opposed to the DM controlling hirelings, and the hirelings each having their own initiative = painfully slow!!) If a player is absent but we're going ahead without them, and we can't explain away their PC, their PC counts as an NPC under this rule. I'm toying with allowing players to spend DM Inspiration not only on their own actions, but also on other PCs' actions, as long as they can explain how they helped.
* I don’t see the value in rolling stats like ability scores or hit points unless the game is a one-shot and no one is stuck with the demigod/sidekick disparity for long anyway. I just use point buy or array (which is a pre-spent point-buy anyway). If you want to randomize the build, you can always randomly roll where your array scores go. * I also use the bonus action potion rule, but if you’re willing to spend both a standard & a bonus action, you can imbibe or administer a healing potion to maximum effect. * I basically do the opposite of your spellcasting house rule. If someone readies an action to disrupt spellcasting, they can attack the caster and, if they deal damage, force the caster to make a concentration check or lose the spell before it has an effect. I also use ‘passive arcana’ to recognize the spell as it’s being cast, with the DC being 10 + the spell’s level. * I like the post-roll inspiration reroll. Currently, I’m using hero points that let the player add a d6 to any die roll (or subtract a d6 in the cases when high is negative. I’ve been allowing a character to ‘hold’ as many as their proficiency modifier, but it’s been too many and I’ll be reducing it next game. Maybe it should be six minus proficiency modifier instead, since fragile low level characters need it more. * On skill-dogpiling, I’ll allow two player rolls, but the second roll can be added after the first is seen. It’s basically the help action, we just play it that the less expert character said or did something that broke the mental block of the first, like the “speak, friend, and enter” vs. “say ‘friend’ and enter” riddle. * I don’t like the ‘flammable grease’ thing. Too many people think slow-burning flammables should behave like gasoline when it’s just the opposite. Lamp oil in particular is _supposed_ to burn slow so it provides light for a longer time. Likewise, grease is meant to provide a cooking medium or lubrication in situations where you would specifically not want it to burn away. I would, however, let players reflavor the spell so it conjures an ice patch instead of actual grease. * Floor rolls are 1s (or max in the few cases when lower is better). Get a dice tray or whatever it takes to avoid spreading caltrops on the floor. * The “rule of cool… with sacrifice” idea is good, though I might charge something more significant than inspiration or a hit die so it’s not happening all the time. I liked the XP to Level 3 scene in which one character loses a paladin level to get an illithid brain-slug out of a friend’s head.
A house rule I stole was one from Acquisitions Inc which I've been called the 'Perkin's Critical' because its a rule Chris Perkins used. When you land a critical hit the damage is your normal damage is maxed but now you roll for the critical damage. So if you hit them with a greataxe its 12 + 1d12 + Str mod rather than rolling 1d12 and doubling it or rolling 2d12. It guarantees the critical will feel like a critical hit while not denying the joy of rolling damage. Far too many times have I seen crits that are double 1 damage which makes the natural 20 feel pointless. It also works both ways however (though as a DM the curse of never rolling a good nat 20 applies and I can always fudge the dice if I feel it was unfair, like a level 1 wizard getting one shot by dart)
I've used that house rule for ages, without knowing Perkins used it. I came up with the idea on my own, shortly after I had actually seen 2 points of damage done on a critical hit. It also works well for those who try to speed up combat by rolling to hit and damage dice at the same time, since you don't need to roll again if the 20 comes up on the to hit die. Roll a 20 sider to hit and a d8 for damage, and if it scores a crit, just add 8 rather than needing to roll again.
On Ability scores i allow a full mulligan if 3 or more scores are at 9 or lower cuz that just feels bad. I agree with the no 1s on lvl up but i also take it a step further and allow either median or what you rolled (whichever is higher) On health potion in particular i like to say that you can take an Action to drink it for max heal. But, if you BA drink it you have to roll the (d4s +x) as normal. i like that hold a spell thing imma steal it 😋. solid vid mike👍🏽
My reroll rules are (assuming 4d6 drop lowest) is you can but don't have to reroll if you either a) have 3 or more scores under 10 or b) don't have a single score over 14
One new house rule I've been toying with is around concentration (I know, taboo!). I've felt as a player there's nothing worse than when I get a creature with one of my powerful concentration spells and then it instantly shrugs it off on its turn with no benefit having been had, or with legendary resistances on big bads. So if a creature makes their save against a concentration spell in my games, rhey just sheug off thr effects, not the spell. the player can have their character maintain concentration on the spell until their turn and, as a bonus action can try reapply the effects with a fresh saving throw by the target. A fail reapplied the effect and a pass means the PC loses the spell. They also cannot cast anything above a cantrip, as if they cast a first level spell, on their turn if they use the bonus action or cast first, thereby losing the concentration.
MY HRS - these fix most of my issues - 3up3down stats. Hit points go negative, death saves as soon as you hit zero or less. Saves don’t reset until long rest (-1 save) or restoration spell. We use the same potion tule. We also allow the hold spell mechanism.
For hit points, I use the same rule as you (reroll the one), but I add this one : if the player is not satisfied with the roll, he can reroll the die, but whatever the result is (even a one) you keep it.
one of my main house rules is specific too a single cantrip. true strike, as written is just an ability that anyone with weapons training can just do, and the spell is an action that just says "your next attack roll has advantage" I've seen people play sorcerer to quicken spell bonus action attacks after using this and rogues taking magic initiate to have it and its really not even as broken as some other options you can take. it just gives players another cool option. even had someone play a half-orc crossbow fighter who's flaw was that he was really anal-retentive about his shooting and would force himself to use the true strike ability on every attack for a while. how hard true strike was nerfed from jump just kinda irked me so I've tried it out this way for a while and I've liked the results. the spell version hasn't been a go-to for anyone as of yet and the regular ability version has all the same niche uses as the current spell does which is limited enough to keep it in line as well.
Unsurprising the I like most of your opinions Mike. But, I was genuinely was surprised by some. I especially love adding some 'cost' to the rule of cool, and I really hope you elaborate with some scenarios/examples soon. Sounds super interesting!
-For HP (and starting gold actually) I use the logic of 'you can't roll lower than your passive perception' which was confirmed by the developers. Which is that you can roll or take the average, but you can't roll lower than your class average for HP. Yes it makes for hardier characters, but I don't think you need to gamble in D&D when doing leveling. So for creation I let people roll their gold and compare it to the total cost of their starting equipment, and take whichever is better. -I'm experimenting with a 'group inspiration pool' that I sort of cobbled together from Pugmire, because I don't like the idea of capping people at 1 inspiration but I also don't like the idea of them having more than 1 inspiration? I admit its complicated, lol. But basically if someone would normally qualify for inspiration but already have a point, it goes into a pool for the party. When the party pool hits a number of 'phantom inspiration' equal to the party number, I let the group have a floating inspiration that they can share in a clinch. So if the group agrees, you can use the group point if you don't have your own for a dramatic moment. -A holdover of older editions I think, I allow people to start with bonus languages equal to their Int mod. I don't like how limiting 5e is on languages (basically Common + 1 + from background kind of sucks) -I had a whole weird list of house rules for attribute rolling, but in my most recent game I gave up and went point buy. But after a lot of mathing, I decided to allow 32 points, and you can spend twelve points for a 16 in an a attribute and drop from 8 to 6 in an attribute for up to 3 bonus points (-1 for 7 and -3 total for 6), though I don't know if I'm likely to do that again. I'm also experimenting with the Dragonlance model (bonus feats at 1st and 4th) though potentially replacing the bonus feat at 4th for a modified ASI system. This creates a slightly beefier character but not one so overpowered like in rolling that it breaks the game.
My games are run (not by me!) completely online. Our one DM allows for action, bonus action, reaction and free item interaction. So in one session we had to gather specific potion ingredients and I was allowed to us my item interaction to pick a flower we needed every turn. DM also allows for "Rule of Cool" so if you can describe something you want to try in a way to grab their attention and they like it then it's allowed, but you always have to describe first before getting the yes or no for it or if a roll is required depending on what you're trying to do and your stats: ie. if you want to try and "Skyrim" your way up a cliff and you're naturally dexterous then it's an easy thing, but if you're less dexterous then an athletics roll is required.
So with magic, if a spell takes an action, it takes 3-6 seconds to cast, regardless of when it’s released. This is because a round of combat is 6 seconds and everything (as rules are written) that happens in one round happens at the same time. So if you charge up a spell, you are still using that energy, and it still takes those 3-6 seconds. Just because you don’t point the energy at anything doesn’t mean it’s not spent. For example, just because you don’t point a fan at something to cool it off doesn’t mean the fan is not still on and using power.
I have all these houserules except my rolling for stats and hp rules are a little different. When rolling for stats, I let people roll 4d6, reroll any 1s or 2s, and drop the lowest one to get your score. So far, it's worked out well. Can't even be sure anymore if that's in the book or not but it's worked for now. With HP, if they roll under the average, I let them just take the average. I rather they have above average HP so if things go down, they can't say that it's because they rolled low on their HP. With the grease spell, I explained that it's more of an oil slick but if they spend an extra spell slot, it can have this added attribute. I didnt let it stay there for longer than a full combat round but that seemed more than enough for that particular moment. So we ended up with a similar ruling but in a slightly different way. I feel like houseruling stuff can be necessary because of the flavor and vibe of the game and simply put, the rules don't cover every single type of situation possible. I have tinkered with the idea of spending resources in various ways. Especially the idea of spending hit die in various ways, not just for healing during a short rest. I forget what video I was watching that talked a bit about spending hit die for other things and I figured that it seemed like a good idea to have a player spend a hit die if they wanted to use a feature that they ran out of. It might make them think a little more about how many hit die they use during that next rest or if they need to take a rest at all. I've never had an issue with a PC being overpowered so I try to rule in a player's favor as much as possible. My very first houserule was that in the event of a tie, the PC always won. So if they were defending and there was a tie, it went to them. If they were attacking and there was a tie, it went to them. It just felt fair and showed my players that I really was on their side.
So I'm just pondering on this now, not fully thought out or something I've made a rule yet. But got to thinking about a couple of things that connect to me from this video discussion. Mentioning that Inspiration points should have been called something different and suggesting "Story Points". So I'm thinking about making Story Points a thing, that work in other ways than JUST inspiration points. That maybe they can get story points from good story telling or roleplaying. Doing something in a really cool epic way, that would be cinematic on screen maybe. And you can accumulate any number of story points. And then you can spend Story Points to do various things or achieve various things that you can imagine being done in movies that aren't exactly covered by the rules. A lot of it follows under the rules of cool. Various things having different costs. So then I think about the rule of cool allowing players to do something that gives an advantage that they then try to do constantly. Maybe say that they have to spend a story point to do so. Or a few story points. Want to light the web spell on fire? That sounds cool. It's a great story moment, so you can do it IF you spend a story point or more at the DMs discretion.
I personally let people who ready a spell cast it (or hold it again) on their next turn if the conditions are not met before then It means you're still tied to using the spell but at a lower risk of wasting it
A specific house rule I have that I occasionally get flak for is: I ban revivify and raise dead. I hate both spells cause it makes death feel super cheap. Death saves already give a ton of leeway to help downed party members, I don’t need the cleric just hopping in with a revivify and making death meaningless. A character being at 2 failed death saves should be utterly terrifying because that character is 1 bad roll away from being basically permanently dead. I also feel like some of the best role play I have seen comes from PC death so it sucks to just rob that with a 3rd level spell
One rule I use when building characters: If you take the standard array, you can lower two skill points to raise one skill point. Example; lower strength by 1, lower wisdom by 1, raise charisma by 1. That way you can specialize, but at an increasingly greater cost. The more choices I can give my players, the more interesting the game will be.
I'm getting the grease on fire thing a lot in my game and I ruled it as, it does 1d6 fire damage at the beginning of their turn if they are still in the area. If the fire gets worse or they are covered, the damage goes up.
That last one I would build into the lore and mechanics of the world. like they know they are able to beseech the God's favor with personal sacrifice. I think XP2level3 talked about this too with one of his players sacrificing class levels to bring someone back to life.
For Thunderwave I would argue you are running RAW, the point of origin lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect, that can be the bottom face of the cube. Cube rules also indicate the point of origin isn't in the area of effect unless the caster decides it is. This suggests, if you are imagining a battle map scenario, that the origin square is in the cube, not one square to the side of the cube.
Rolling a 1 for hit points indeed is frustrating. But rerolling the 1 causes the 2 to become the new frustrating number. So instead of using that house rule, I like to go with the 1 and tell the player, they can earn additional hit points by role playing extra training sessions in the characters down time. For example, if the character has one week off, the player could say his character stands up early in the morning does more push ups than normal and goes jogging for 3 hours. The rest of the day, the character may do something else. After the week, I let the player roll one additional die. Which one depends on his actual hit points compared to the average hit points he might have. If he is far below average he may roll 1d8+con, if he is far above he may roll 1d4+con, and if he is close to average he may roll 1d6+con. Yes, players could max this system to get to max hit points. But I have never seen this happen. People are only interested in it, if they are far below their average.
Another way to think about the not casting a spell you readied is that you poured your energy into the spell and held it back, RAW this expends the energy, but with the houserule you absorb the energy back (since it wasn't released) and "regain" the spell slot that you expended. I don't know this sort of made sense in my head
When it comes to Stat rolls at my table I do 4D6 reroll 1s and do 7 rolls drop lowest. It makes for higher stats which Im good with. Most importantly I have all players show their block and table decides which Block is used for everyone. That Block becomes the Standard Array for my table for that campaign. This makes it the most fair that everyone has the same Stat block to work from.
In Re: Readying a Spell. This is likely where you, in houseruling an alternate rule, are the one misunderstanding the context of how spells are "timed" relative to Action, Bonus Action and Reaction scaled timing. While no definitive amount of time is noted for casting a given spell in terms of seconds (unlike back in earlier editions, particularly 2nd), a spell that takes an Action to cast is understood to take at least 2-3 seconds to complete, vs the faster BA spell casting (often a second, in context) and the even faster Reaction spell casting (which takes not only a fraction of second but is understood to even be integrable with casting an in-process spell, which is how a caster can defend their own Action spell with a Reaction Counterspell, for example). In that regard, it makes complete sense that most spells used in combat (usually taking an Action to cast) are cast and then the energy "held" for a couple brief seconds before being released relative to RA. Per the metaphysics of how magic works in DnD, once a spell is cast then that counts as having drawn upon/channeled energy from The Weave (or comparable in non-Faerun based settings) and therefore counts as being expended for the caster in question regardless of the outcome (whether the spell even gets to successfully manifest or not being irrelevant, vis-a-vis how Counterspell causes a spell to be expended regardless). As commented on by Crawford in multiple tweets/interviews, readying a spell is meant/intended to be a risk: the caster had better make sure they are as close to certain as possible about the few seconds window they have to release "x" spell for "y" timing/effect, or else waste the casting. (Or simply ready a cantrip, which draws only upon ambient mystical energies and can be cast any number of times.) The system is already quite generous compared to prior editions in what casters can "get away with" relative to things like being restrained/grappled (grapple doesn't inhibit most casting, while restraining often doesn't sans very specific noted circumstantial aspects), being able to cast underwater (at least one spell before drowning rules come into play), and other things. The risk involved in RA-ing a spell makes a lot of sense. I understand what you're trying to say, but what Crawford & Co. are noting/asserting really does make sense. (Now, if general spell casting wasn't resource-restricted as it is in DnD metaphysics -- for example, most mages in World of Darkness can cast a given rote/spell without fear of "losing" the casting, so to speak, in this regard -- then what you're noting would make more contextual sense; but DnD, and in particular 5E's, metaphysics are much more resource-restricted than in other settings' metaphysics. Houseruling what you note is fine, of course, for your world... but it honestly sounds like you may have missed a few key conceptual notes relative to how spellcasting works in this regard.)
while what you said makes sense, I still think except for kind of specific situations, getting ready to cast a spell in response to something happening on the battlefield makes sense, you are just reserving that 2-3 seconds of your turn for slightly later in the fight. the spell shouldn't go off INSTANTLY when the trigger happens, but I see no reason to not let a player be ready and start casting fireball or whatever in response to the trigger. and if the trigger never happens, they never started casting, they just wasted their action.
@@Wishuponapancake They key point/distinction, though, in that regard is that that spellcasting is, as noted, more resource and (implied) time-dependent (especially for Action and BA spells) than, say, swinging a sword or similar. That's part of the underlying point: by delaying casting an Action spell to "x" point in the initiative order-of-actions, it undermines part of the essential balance of what Initiative (as a game mechanic) is intended to do. Just as, for counter-example, a warrior can't get their Extra Attack on their Ready Action-Reaction (they can only get one attack roll, vs 2+), for casters the mechanical balance comes into play that they have to cast the spell "on their turn", holding the energy for a couple/few seconds, then hopefully either react to the noted trigger or have the energy dissipate. That risk, relative to slot-level spells, is a sensible balance that also makes sense in a magic-is-a-metered-resource setting like DnD. (As noted, the caster can always ready a cantrip -- there's no lost slot/energy, in effect, with losing that, and cantrips are deliberately scaled to increase in terms of having "useful damage" just for this contingency). It really does make sense both on a mechanical as well as metaphysical level.
with low (or high) stats I normally adjust them to equal 72 and that there is something very low like a 6 or 7 amd ,ore than one stat equal or over 15 16, 9, 11, 12, 12, 9 was rolled and adjusted to 16, 6, 11, 12, 12, 15
I want to say that it was 3e, maybe 3.5, but there was a rule in the book that when the players rolled for stats and their bonuses added up to +1 total then the character needed to be re-rolled. I don't run 5e, and use Pathfinder 2e these days, but I am surprised to learn that this rule did not carry forward into the current edition of D&D.
If you drop prone and shoot the thunder wave up it would hit everything around you that is taller than about knee height. Of course this could put you in a bad position.
Gonna put down my stuff because I just love talking about this. -I do 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest number, which tends to get people like... One negative stat, a few mediocre ones, and one or two really good plus 3 or 4. I have a rule that if you have two negative stats, you can replace one with a 10. I've never seen someone get 3 negative stats, but if that did happen, I might allow only one 10 replacement, or give them the option of a point buy. This means characters are strong out of the gate, but since most people want to get feats and not +2, it means the numbers tend to work in the end. It also just feels good for the player. They feel well equipped. And ultimately, I don't think it ruins balance or fantasy. (But I might change it in 6e depending on what they do with feats.) -For hit dice, I rule that if you roll anything less than the median+1, you keep median+1, anything else, you keep. So if you roll a d6 and got a 1, you get 4hp. If you rolled a 5, you get 5. If you roll a 3, you get 4. Etc. This means that players, again, tend to be strong, but there is some randomness. A range of possiblilities that skews higher, but isn't at the maximum. Almost no one will ever have actual maximum health. -Ditto on potions. Out of combat, potions heal for maximum automatically. -I keep the penalty on spells because spellcasters are generally more versatile. -Really like the Grease spell alt rules. -Politely disagree on thunderwave. -YES, the DM trade. If you are willing to sacrifice, it's got my attention. It's like bartering with an Archfey. Lol. What will you give me in return?
@@ncpolley Oh sorry, I misread your first point, I thought you meant rolling 7 times and dropping the lowest! It's something I've used for new players a couple of times
I like the rule of cool, but I'm very wary of using it with spells, cause it makes the casters overshadow melee characters even more (and even earlier in the campaign) than they already do. With non-magical stuff or magical-nonmagical combos - sure, Rule of Cool all the way. But with spells I'm pretty rigid usually. I've also seen DMs allow cool combos the first time and giving inspiration for it, but then banning it cause it's too good, and I'm fine with that as a player. I also allow to use health potions as a bonus action on yourself, it only makes sense, I've seen this house rule in every campaign I've played in, it should be the default.
For skill checks I have a max of two. I tell them this represents the two best attempts and let them decide who's doing it. Leveling up I have them roll their hit dice with advantage. The potions I'm torn on. I've always kept it to a single action. But I think your suggestion might be a good compromise. Because casting a Spell is a full action and yet if it's in potion form it's a bonus? That just seems strange.
i know I'm late, but I'm guessing the "readying a spell wastes the spell slot" thing is mostly for balancing. spellcasters are substantially more powerful than martial classes for their strength and versatility (esp at higher levels). they also can only cast one spell per turn as a balancing measure...
Personal House Rule: No Casting Silence On Another Player! Had a magic user that used to do this to my character ANYTIME he felt like and we eventually got into an argument over it because, as I told him, you're essentially stopping me from playing and treating me AND my character like a child who needs to be shut up. It's not fair, it breeds resentment and tbh casting Silence on another player is just a dick move unless they're under mind control or something like that.
As a dm if this happened in my game I'd say there was some sort of magical anomaly or whatever makes sense for the setting and make it backfire at the player casting it. If it happened a second time same outcome and a conversation with the player after the session. Depending on the results of the conversation 3rd time and onward either the player would be dropped from the group or if it was in a funny playful kind of way that wasn't meant to be toxic roll an additional d20 when casting 1-10 spell hits you and target player decides when to drop 11-20 hits as intended and you decide when to drop
8:15 I had similar experience but in reverse. Rather than casting Grease and setting it on fire... Cast Burning Hands while another player throws bottle of lantern oil at the same target. Part of Burning Hands is "The fire ignites any flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried." so why not add more flammable objects?
This is how some friends of mine roll stats: Roll 10+2d4 six times. Make two lists. Choose one. We love it. Level 3 characters feel SO much more fun to use.
Our favorite method has been to have a deck of 12 cards, each with some value between 4 and 9. You shuffle up and make 6 piles. Your ability scores are the sums of each of the 6 piles. The most straightforward card values are just 2 each of 4-9. That said, the DM has leeway to adjust them however they choose, if you want 16 to be the maximum, you can certainly remove the 9s for some other number that hits the power level you want for your campaign.
The only one I really don't like is allowing to reroll 1s for hit points. Reasons are: - I don't really like rulings or house rules that allow to "cheat" or ignore the dice, to me dice are what makes the game so fun and unpredictable. - D&D 5e characters are already unkillable, even at low levels. One of my players is playing a paladin with 13 AC and 15 HP at lv 2 and he managed to take down 2 drow guards on his own in one of the encounters; it felt epic and dramatic, but no one was really worried that he was going to die.
I definitely dislike the idea that we ask casters to burn a very limited resource in addition to their action (not to mention asking them to maintain concentration) if their trigger doesn't occur, but allow everyone else to hold actions without the additional consequence and difficulty. There are some spells where maybe the effects are a bit too crazy when you can time them perfectly - but hey, why not reward player creativity? Where I come down on the other side is potion chugging. I think it's far too powerful to allow a fighter to drink a potion every round and still attack. If they want to spend an entire feat on it? Fine, that's acceptable and akin to gaining an attack. At baseline, that offensive/defensive/supportive choice should be the same as it is for a dedicated healer in my opinion. Sometimes things have to be annoying to help make those dedicated roles shine. My explanation is always that drinking a potion isn't easy. How long would it take you to pop a cork and drink a glass of wine while someone is trying to stab you? Well, your character can do it in 6 seconds without getting skewered - that's pretty good!
When it comes to skill dog-piling, I suppose one has to sacrifice some verisimilitude in the name of game balance, but putting hard limits on it still often really bugs me. Like, if the characters were actual people trying to accomplish something in an actual physical space, and a member of the group does a bad job at something, the rest of the group is going to *see them do a bad job* and try their hand at the thing. It always just takes me way out of the experience when the DM has to say "Sorry, your party member took a cursory glance around the room while investigating for evidence in the bad guy's office and didn't see anything incriminating. No, you're not allowed to look through desk drawers or point out the untouched filing cabinets, you're only allowed to try things once and that's that!" That's just one random example off the top of my head, but there are countless other scenarios where making a single attempt at something just makes zero sense. As with a lot of things in D&D, usually the best bet is being flexible and going one way or the other when it's appropriate to the situation.
This is where time is important. A room search isn’t a glance, it’s a full commitment. If other players join they Aid, or else they’re doing other things. If someone isn’t happy with the result, they can spend another 10 minutes looking, but time is passing. In your example, you might even divide it up-did you want to investigate the desk, the filing cabinets, or the closet and bathroom?
I play on roll20 andmy player have slowly started making all rolls private. Idk why I guess for role-playing reasons they don't have to but since they find the secrecy more fun it prevents skill dogpiling which is nice. I don't get to play in person much. But for cocked, miss drops or floor dice I always point out that if it was a bad roll they wouldn't have kept it so I can't let them keep it if it's good either.
My only disagreement with these rules is the thunderwave spell thing. In 5E the spell specifically says "a square centered on you" meaning that you are in the center of the radius of the spell
I don't like to allow roll dice for stats. Pointbuy and average hitpoints is more ballanced, and give the player more controll over their build. Save the dicerolls for stuff that happens at the table.
I haven't come to a stable stance on readied spells. RAW 5E, you expend the spell on ready, which is a lot of investment. RAW PF2e, you can only ready a single or free action, and most spells are two actions in the three action model. It isn't a good option in either system.
I don't think the RAW Thunderwave is different from what you are describing, or I am missing something. (Granted I am not super familiar as I've not really played many casters, let alone use this spell.) However, if it is a cube and the point of origin is self, by the rules wouldn't placing yourself in the center of the face of the cube hit every direction? The rules don't dictate the cube face you choose has to be vertical it can be the horizontal face, and then any spot on that face can be the point of origin so it can still be somewhat directed in a direction but still hit all around you. Or am I misreading something? (I haven't really played all that much DnD, I basically have 1 character that has had any meaningful amount of play, and that is a barbarian so no spells for me)
That’s definitely how it SHOULD work, or seems to work, based on how the spell is written - but there’s a sentence in the chapter before that says that a spell with a cube effect is cast with the caster on the side, not in the center. Jeremy Crawford, one of the designers of 5e, has confirmed this was their intent for thunderwave. But as you pointed out, and as has been proven by SO many other players drawing the same conclusion, that isn’t remotely clear when reading the spell.
@@SupergeekMike I suppose I should have been clearer I meant if the person is in the center of the bottom face of the cube they still hit all around them, well not below. So I guess not quite all around them, if you are in a very hectic 3 dimensional battle
Unpopular Opinion: I dont let my players reroll 1s on HP. If they didn't want to take that risk, they should've taken average instead, that's what it's there for. You choose to roll, you take the result, even when its bad.
I don't even allow the option to roll. Characters should be advancing as a group, each having proportionally as many hit points as that class is supposed to have. I don't want someone performing under par because they rolled a couple of 1's in a row trying to get lucky.
Hey Mike! I’ve been DMing for a little over a year but I still sometimes have a hard time understanding certain rules and I don’t know if I’m just misreading things or just misunderstanding things. Is there a way I could potentially talk to you about the things I’m having some difficulty with? Or do you have a good suggestion for me? P.S. I’m really enjoying your channel man. Thanks for the awesome videos.
Thank you! Probably the best way to ask is on the Discord, I'm pretty active there and there are also lots of other smart people who can help! We have a "DM Advice" channel that is really valuable for just such a thing :)
03:15 I disagree with you here, I like the rule that you need to consume the spell slot and add risk to holding your action to cast a spell. I think it sells the fiction of power crackling in a Wizard's hands as they wait for the opportune moment to release, but I also think it's important because spellcasting is just so much more powerful then the majority of actions a character will take. A Martial character who holds their action can only take one swing, or push/shove or take any number of suboptimal actions with the flexibility holding an action provides. Casting Fireball on your turn or on someone else's turn isn't suboptimal. Making it not cost a spell slot encourages a style of play where a Wizard can just wait around the corner repeatedly without risk and reward. If they make that tactical decision with an element of risk it's all the more satisfying when it pays off.
This is more of a role playing house rule but I love the “Scooby Snack” Rule. Basically Shaggy and Scooby were total cowards and didn’t wanna do anything but it only ever took 1 Scooby snack to get the to follow along with the play. So your character can be a coward/disagree with the action the rest of the group wants to take but it shouldn’t take more than one metaphorical “Scooby snack” to get you to follow the group. This keeps one person from dragging the whole party down because they don’t wanna do something.
Stealing this
That’s brilliant, imstealing it. Thank you
@@RJ-1580 I stole it from a TikTok who know how long ago so feel free
@@CameraHam nice
Only takes one glass to milk to get BA on the plane.
When it comes to things like "flammable Grease," I have a rule at my table that's sort of like Rule of Cool: players can do The Thing for one encounter, because it's creative and fun, but it's not allowed to become a repeatable tactic. For example, the players were fighting some oozes that corroded weaponry and burned skin, and the party's wizard asked if they could use the Mold Earth cantrip to "make some dirt/stone gloves for the fighter to shield the fighter's hands from the acid."
For that encounter only, Mold Earth became a Concentration cantrip, and the fighter got some protective punching gloves. It was a great way to save the fighter's weapons (and skin) from damage, and made for a memorable encounter. I like this approach because it both rewards creativity when it happens and encourages players to keep being creative in future.
I like your method, but I’m also leaning towards something I saw Brennan Lee Mulligan house rule while he was DMing Fantasy High. One of the players wanted to cast a spell, but wanted it to do something slightly different than rules as written, so he made her roll an Arcana check.
I made that a house rule in my games as well. I set the DC higher if the spell is a higher level, or lower if the spell level is lower, and the change has to be within reason of the spell’s capabilities. So trying to use Mage Hand to lift something that’s 20 lbs instead of 5 is fine to roll for, but trying to use it to lift a huge boulder blocking the path? Nah.
That way, players can always attempt to do cool stuff with their spells, but it’s not a guarantee that it’ll work.
Another potential balance for the grease-fire combo might be to make it hard to set the grease on fire. So a normal torch might not do it but a fireball spell would. Basically treating it like crude oil rather than gasoline. Similarly, there might be penalties as well as benefits. So it could burn with a heavy black smoke that provides a smokescreen or fills small dungeon rooms, which means players have to be careful of where, how and what they use it against.
I use repeated tactics as things that word gets out on and the enemies learn. Enemies learn to anticipate and protect against said tactics (as in the real world we learn tactics for defenses against things that start being used often, AND also use the same tactics against the PCs.
@@Logan_Baron so your enemies are always a step behind the PCs, and why exactly? Do they leave a lot of witnesses?
I run a very combat heavy campaign so I house rule, for healing potions, if you take an action you get the full benefit of the potion, but you can use a bonus action to drink it but then you have to roll up the HP gained. I also do group checks for very general things like looking around a room but only allow max of 2 PCs to roll if it's something specific. Keep up the good work.
Ooh those are both very smart solutions!
I like this a lot.
Have been doing potions like that for a while. Great way to roll
In my game I introduced a potionbelt, that stores a maximum of 3 potions. You can drink any of those three as a bonus action yourself. If you want to feed it to someone else or you would like to drink the other potion that is still in your bag, that would take you an action. With this rule each player needs to think what potions he/she want's to equip and makes it a lot more interesting.
I do this as well although i limit it to standard, greater and superior healing potions only and it’s a great low level magical item to give out to players that won’t break the game.
About the roll dog piling: I don’t like olayers asking “can I roll a history check?” Or like they do in Critical Role “INSIGHT CHECK!”
They should be asking “Is this something I would know?” Or “Do I believe this person?”
The reason at my table I push for that style is it eliminates the piling on as it presents me as the DM an opportunity to bring up the fact that they might not even have to roll. They might obviously know the information based on their character backstory, or someone with a high enough passive insight can see through the deception.
Or I give them a “Does anyone else want to assist them?” with whatever task they’re doing and I might even just give advantage as is they’re using the Help action.
Though, there are some occasions where the idea of “Ok, get out of the way, I’ll do it!” can work and I’ll allow at least a minor level of piling on as that’s something that happens in real life too depending on the situation. But those are usually more physical actions and less perception or insight style checks.
This got a bit ramble-y, but I hope I was clear lol
Some of my house rules as a dm are:
I always use standard array, I just think it makes for a more even experience between players and everyone has one great ability and one bad one.
Players can't cast enchantment spells on each other or use persuasion, deception, or intimidation on other players because it's led to pretty bad and abusive scenarios.
I have a more robust frightened condition that includes fight, flight, and freeze.
In contesting rolls, saving throws, DC, AC, etc... rolls, in a tie the defender always wins.
I also basically use the same ruling to prevent dice check dog piles.
My most controversial thing I do is that some enemies don't have hit points and are instead tracked by rounds and I let the PC that has the story connection to the bad guy get the killing blow.
As a beginner DM who got into DnD like 4 months ago (because of CR), you're probably my favorite channel on TTRPGs. I really like the way you explain that's good for beginners and pros alike. Great content as always
Thank you!
I’ve been a player in my Dad’s D&D games for nearly 20 years and one of his house rules is something I’ve always liked. Every player character can have up to three potions of any kind held in a easily accessible pouch and consuming one of them is a bonus action. However, you have to have which ones are in the pouch written down beforehand and if you want to drink a potion that’s not in the pouch, it’s an action because you need to look through your backpack, bag of holding, etc. for it for a few seconds before drinking it. Whether or not you’re feeding the potion doesn’t matter just whether it’s one of the three easy to reach ones.
"I don't agree with it so I don't do it"
That is what makes it your game. That is what makes you the dungeon master.
With Held Spells, the reasoning is that there are spells that are reactions because they are fast enough to be cast as a reaction. Just like you have to quicken a spell in order to cast it as a bonus action.
I also don't like having to spend the slot if something doesn't happen immediately, my house rule is that you can hold it indefinitely but you are concentrating and you have to make a concentration check to hold it at the start of your turn and it uses one of your hands.
As a new DM I've been having some troubles setting or defining my own house rules so this video was pretty helpful with helping me shape my own. I've really appreciated your videos recently and how concise they are and for what it's worth they've made my entry into the D&D "Scene" a lot easier and a lot less daunting so thanks.
Another house rule I've come to be familiar with has to do with the invisibility spell. Now, I'm a novice (very novice) player and I only had my first dnd session a few months ago, but our DM is super experienced and great at explaining things. One time during a hangout call where we were all working on characters, he explained that the invisibility spell doesnt actually make you invisible, it just gives you an advantage on stealth checks. Which to all of us and him was ridiculous. In all the sessions he runs, he makes it so invisibility actually makes you *invisible*, not just stealthed with an advantage on your rolls. Super cool, and he runs amazing sessions ^^
Loved the vid!
Great video and thanks for having an explanation for each rule you have. The Inspiration one I actually have a 3 limit ruling. It makes them still valuable to my players but allows them to save up atleast a few for good moments
Its cool seeing these. All good and fair rules boss!
We use a similar healing potion rule: Drinking your own healing potion is a Bonus Action, administering a healing potion to another character is an Action.
I've also heard to rule of bonus to drink as normal and action to get full benefit. So bonus you roll the dice but full action you get max hitpoints back.
@@unnefer001 I use this as well, it's great for when people are healing up out of combat too
Generally I find this makes encounters too easy for characters. It should be hard to stay alive in a battle and there's a reason the party should include a healer if possible. At the very least they should have to spend a feat slot to get his ability.
@@toshomni9478 wow that's dumb and a way to ensure no one ever uses potions.
People would really give the best solutions to something and someone out there will still think it's not good for some reason.
That’s exactly how that optional rule is in Tal’Dorei Reborn
Using the "Rule of Cool" but at a cost, is a great idea. Probably my groups most controversial house rule though is holding initiative. Basically my groups been playing long enough together that we've always just said, you can hold your turn until after x player goes.
I like how Robert Hartley handles Dogpiling skill checks, he raises the DC on each successive fail.
"The rules of this game are guidelines, not commandments. Don't let them get in the way of your group and your enjoyment this game... also, consent is a very important thing." - Armando, a great DM.
I'll argue with the held spells not being used up and offer a middle solution. Held spells can be concentrated on and maintained until the caster casts a different spell. While holding a spell a character must make concentration checks when they take damage. For every round after the 2nd round spent holding the spell a concentration check of dc 8+ the number of rounds the spell has been held must be made.
Spells are actions because of the verbal, somatic and material components. Using a characters reaction to trigger the release of the spell is a fair trade off. Remember there is a feat that allows casters to cast any spell as a reaction for an attack of opportunity. Allowing characters to hold spells indefinitely and not use the slots leads to a party of wizards that immediately casts 5 fireballs on any potential threat appearing.
To me spells work by conjuring up the powers and then releasing them. Holding a spell means you've got the powers accumulated and are waiting to release the spell when conditions are met or when you choose to. Don't want to waste the spell slot? then let the spell go (cast it). Try to argue that the spell slot shouldn't be used up? Then you never used an action to cast the spell, so your next turn your action is to cast the spell.
Inspiration: Odyssey of the Dragonlords 3PP campaign has a 5 point inspiration system that lets you do all sorts of stuff depending on how many inspirations you spend. My table paired it down to a 3 point system and took a bit of inspiration (pun intended) from Blades in the Dark:
1 Inspiration
* Reroll any D20 roll your character makes
2 Inspiration
* Can make any d20 roll a nat 20 instead
* Legendary Resistance: After failing a saving throw, you can choose to succeed instead
* Legendary Endurance: As a free action, you may spend a number of hit dice less than or equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining health as your normally would
3 Inspiration
* Heroic Save: If a character within 5 feet of you is attacked or fails a Strength, Dex of Constitution saving throw, you can choose to suffer the effect instead of them. You have resistance to all damage until the start of your next turn. You can move yourself and/or the specified ally up to 10 feet, and only you are subject to Opportunity Attacks.
* Legendary Action: You can choose, at the end of anyone's turn, to take a Legendary Action. You can take any standard action you can normally take, or move up to your movement speed
* Defy Death: When you would drop to 0 hit points, you can instead choose to gain resistance to the triggering damage until the start of your next turn, or drop to 1 hp, whichever would leave you with a greater hit point total.
Variable Inspiration
* Flashback: You can spend inspiration to state that your character did something in the past to help in the current situation. This has to be something your character would logically do and depending on the impact can cost 1-3 inspiration.
Mostly we've done the reroll and auto succeed so far, but the flashback idea is nice to have out there as an option if we ever find ourselves in a bind.
I'm on the cusp of introducing a meta-rule that essentially says "Discuss any new spell you want to use with me, between games if at all possible." It saves time adjudicating new (to me) spells at the table and mostly avoids the whole "I wouldn't have taken this otherwise" problem. So far I'm not DMing any games with full-spell-list casters, so it's a manageable workload.
my versions of these house rules :
1: standard array + 1d6 to spread out as desired
2: roll 1d4 + # to total HD (i.e. d6= 1d4+2, d8= 1d4+4, d10= 1d4+6, ect)
3: choose 3 potions to place on belt to use as a bonus action (self or on others) any potion not on belt slot uses action
4: readied spell carries over round to round, but if caster does any other action other than releasing the held spell slot is lost.
5: 1 inspiration point but inspiration refreshes on a long rest
6: same
7: same
8: same
9: grease IS flammable but burns for 1 round 1d6 fire damage per level of the spell slot used
10: raw BUT the caster can be on the inside of the square but still at the edge (also the cantrip thunderclap functions with caster at center and radiates outward)
11: same
12: same
13: same, within reason
Regarding drinking a potion as a bonus action; I’ve done something similar in the past. Characters were allowed to pay certain smiths to craft armor with a quick slot for a potion. This allowed them to drink a potion as a bonus action. Refilling the slot was an action, drinking a potion otherwise was an action, and feeding someone else a potion was also an action. So it achieved similar results but prevented players from abusing it in combat a bit.
The way I've long wanted to try Hit Point increases is: Each level (probably after rolling the new hit die), take *all* your hit dice and roll them. If the number is higher than your current Max HP, that's your new Max HP. This would provide a chance for characters to undo low rolls from previous levels, but wouldn't impact characters who got a bunch of high rolls (albeit there's a slight chance of rolling max). Could actually be a huge jump.
But I really don't know how well this would work in practice.
I also REALLY like Starfinder/Starjammer's Stamina pool. Kinda like a rechargeable shield, where the first half-ish of your health is recovered just by catching your breath (Short Rest... and a Resolve Point, measuring how depleted your reserves are getting), and it's only when you lose all your Stamina that you start taking actual damage that takes more effort to recover. I've even thought about using it in combination with a debuffs system where when your actual health gets below a certain level, you have a chance of acquiring a problem, like a sprained ankle or hurt fingers or whatever, that changes how you can participate in combat.
I also allow banking multiple points of inspiration, up to the player's maximum class level. I also try to identify per tier of play a signature ability that the player can use if they spend a certain number of inspiration points, that I develop with the player based on their background and class combination.
Like the grease variant and the resource spend for cool action. Will implement both.
interesting ideas. I get why drinking a potion is more than an object interaction - you have to grab it, uncork it, swallow it, and there's also a delay in the potion taking effect. It's not as simple as swinging a sword or muttering a quick bonus action spell. That said - it's a bonus action in the campaigns I run as well.
I think casting a full action spell is also more complicated than attacking... but if the person has War Caster, indicating that they've trained to pull together the mental energy to cast as a reaction, I can see myself saying they wouldn't waste a spell.
For group checks, I try to play it by ear with nothing hard and fast. If the fiction makes sense that everyone is looking around or discussing a topic, I'd be inclined to let people pile on. It all depends if I'm asking, the player is asking, and the circumstances surrounding those choices.
Skill dog piling... that's a good idea. Give some space for people to jump in on the check before it's rolled. I'm going to use that in my game as well. Thanks!
I feel the point of making rolling for stats "fair" defeats the purpose entirely, and you might as well do fixed/point-buy.
These house rules make a lot of sense to me. The skill check dog pile is one that I’m definitely onboard with. The metagaming where the characters somehow know the outcome of a die roll was bad is the issue I have with it. Not a fan of it. :P
Well, there's knowing the outcome of a die roll and there's a person *seeing they did a bad job* at something or seeing their friend do a bad job at something and trying again.
Like, if you're baking something, completely screw up, and burn the crap out of the thing you were making you don't just shrug and say "Welp, guess I gotta take this charcoal to the bake sale!" You start over and try again.
Personally I find that in the majority of scenarios it takes more metagaming to try to twist and re-interpret a situation in a way where only a single attempt can be made.
@@mr.incorporeal7642 I understand what you’re saying. There are definitely times when a failure is clear and someone should feel free to jump in. I was thinking more of when it wouldn’t be obvious to the in-game characters. Like when someone rolls a 10 on a check, a perfectly average roll, but the players think a 10 might not be good enough in a gaming mindset to meet the DC the DM has in mind.
@@RPGtourguide yeah like, if you roll a 12 or 14 on an inspection check, that means your character is sure they would have found something if anything was there. if someone else tried to jump in after, they'd probably get pretty offended, like that other character doesn't trust them or think of them highly.
I like your aproach to skill dogpiling, the greese spell + fire combo, and thunderwave.
One house rule I’ve implemented that my players really like is that when an attack roll is exactly a target’s AC, that attack deals half damage.
It sucks to know that you were a single digit away from getting out clean and at higher levels bosses have such high modifiers that AC is almost useless anyway so this really is for making the early game scramble for survival a little less stressful.
Of course, this applies to enemies as well.
First time watcher here, but enjoy your videos so far. No clue why I can't see the comments, but here we go.
Rolling for stats - so, my table now uses a rule an old 2E DM of mine used; for PCs, no stat is less than 10. his rule was, roll 4D6, drop the lowest, 10s get rerolled. Now, with all the technology etc as well as time to think on it, it's easier to do roll 1D7 and add 9. This guarantees you dont get less than a 10, but also caps the starting stats as the average per stat is 14. The other thing it does is limit how much rolling needs to happen; you only roll each stat ONCE, and you have your "basement".
Hit Points - another house rule we use is a "basement" for HP. The average HP in the PHB is the minimum you can get. However, you can roll your Hit Die to see if you get better. If you get less than the basement, take the basement. Again, this allows for stronger characters, but also, it allows the lower HP characters to have a chance to soak one really bad hit, and still live.
Spell Slots - same as your rule, love this
Skill checks after a failed PC - yeah, we're guilty of this one. This is one reason why Skill Challenges are a thing (lots of homebrew videos talk about it), and also something AD&D got better than 5E. In AD&D, each class had skills they can use. If you didnt have those skills, you couldnt perform the task. So, if you wanted to pick a lock, only those who had the ability as part of their character could try. Sometimes a magic item would grant an ability (), but almost always it was because of the class you chose.
Physical Dice rolls - if it's not intentional, and on the table, it doesnt count.
Ooh I really liked this video! I've been dm'ing for just under a year, and it turns out we have similar dm styles, which makes me feel confident! Thanks for sharing all this. I can't wait for the video about "spending resources" to allow the players to do extra exciting things.
I had to change Initiative. Too many years of cyclical Initiative made it boring. So Initiative is d12+Proficiency Die (eg, d12+d4) rolled at the start of each round. If a class gives you a bonus to Initiative, then you have that too. Anyone incapacitated/dying rolls last not first.
Drinking a potion is a Bonus Action as you rule, but it can attract an Attack of Opportunity.
Good video. I also allow multiple inspirations, which I call "karma." And I let them both use it as a luck point AND spent it to alter the story in minor ways in their favor.
Ooh calling it karma does open a lot of other really cool reasons to reward it as well… wow I am thinking a lot about this and… having ideas…
I love the Dungeon Coach method for rolling stats. Keeps it balanced while still rolling for stats instead of standard array. Love the few videos of yours I’ve watched so far!
There's a magic item that shows up in my campaigns a lot. It's a wizards hat with a few leather straps on the side, and some flexible tubing. It's basically a soda-drinking hat, but for potions. It can hold two potions, and you can use a bonus action to drink both of them.
Just remember not to try it in 1E. The Potion Miscibility Table is a harsh master.
I love your content! Recently found you and I'm eating up all your vids! Thanks man.
My favorite house rule I use is
At level one, roll for your level 2 HP. So level 1- roll for level 2 hp.
Level 2- do NOT roll for hp.
Level 3-20- roll for hp as normal.
Nothing sucks worse than out right killing the 8 hp wizard from a stray goblin crit. And this rule feels better than fudging the dice for your level 1 party to survive.
I recall in an early campaign -- I think before we were into Pathfinder, maybe back as far as BESM? -- my ranger-type character got the ability to blind enemies with a called shot, or something like that. Its utility was powerful enough that I basically started using it all the time. At some point I grew to hate it because it felt like the Best Move and provided no variety, no choice in combat. So when a move becomes The Move, there's gotta be mechanics to walk it back enough to make things varied and interesting again. (I have no idea if we'd misunderstood the rules or whatever, I just recall that it was reliable and powerful to the point where nothing else was as useful as that one trick shot.)
We have the complete opposite policy on dice falling on the floor. My rule when I ran games in person was play it as it lies. As long as the die was somewhere it could be seen, you had to go with it. This did at one point lead to someone lifting up the end of the couch with two people sitting on it to check his result. That would have been a situation in which I would have allowed a reroll, but that player was dedicated.
Oh, these are some good rules. I like your compromise on the flammable Grease spell. One that I have (that I can't do right now because I'm playing on Roll20 and I don't know how to do the programming, if such a thing is possible), is that critical damage on critical hits, the first damage dice is automatically max damage, it's the second dice you roll to see how much extra damage you do. because there's nothing worse than getting a critical hit and rolling two 1s for damage.
Binge-watching your vids, man. They're outstanding.
Thank you!
This was SO HELPFUL! :D I've been a fairly long time player, but recently I've taken up the DM mantle for a group of family members and was looking for some helpful tips on rules and such so I can go over them in our session 0. Time to go binge all your other videos now for more inspiration. Lol
For flammable grease, There's the standard oil flask from the adventuring gear, it normally covers only 5 foot square, I rule that in instances of igniting grease, it's equivalent as 10 foot square of oil, which is fine since an oil flask costs only 1 silver piece, lasts 2 rounds when ignited, and can only deal 5 damage per round to any creature that steps on it
In my pathfinder games, I have similar rules as your first two. I have a range of total modifiers, and if the players total modifier is lower than that range they can reroll if they want, and if it's higher they must reroll. And I always give my players the full first hit die, no rolling.
I agree with all of these except maybe the dropped dice one (but I agree about if it hits the floor).
Some more I've gathered from play:
Sleeping in Armor? -- Taking off your armor is the last thing you do at night before going to bed, and putting on your armor is the first thing you do in the morning when waking up. If you want to sleep in your armor, you have to call it in advance.
Hirelings -- In combat, each friendly combatant NPC must be controlled by a single player, and the NPC moves on the PC's initiative. A player cannot have more than 1 friendly combatant NPC under their control. (As opposed to the DM controlling hirelings, and the hirelings each having their own initiative = painfully slow!!) If a player is absent but we're going ahead without them, and we can't explain away their PC, their PC counts as an NPC under this rule.
I'm toying with allowing players to spend DM Inspiration not only on their own actions, but also on other PCs' actions, as long as they can explain how they helped.
* I don’t see the value in rolling stats like ability scores or hit points unless the game is a one-shot and no one is stuck with the demigod/sidekick disparity for long anyway. I just use point buy or array (which is a pre-spent point-buy anyway). If you want to randomize the build, you can always randomly roll where your array scores go.
* I also use the bonus action potion rule, but if you’re willing to spend both a standard & a bonus action, you can imbibe or administer a healing potion to maximum effect.
* I basically do the opposite of your spellcasting house rule. If someone readies an action to disrupt spellcasting, they can attack the caster and, if they deal damage, force the caster to make a concentration check or lose the spell before it has an effect. I also use ‘passive arcana’ to recognize the spell as it’s being cast, with the DC being 10 + the spell’s level.
* I like the post-roll inspiration reroll. Currently, I’m using hero points that let the player add a d6 to any die roll (or subtract a d6 in the cases when high is negative. I’ve been allowing a character to ‘hold’ as many as their proficiency modifier, but it’s been too many and I’ll be reducing it next game. Maybe it should be six minus proficiency modifier instead, since fragile low level characters need it more.
* On skill-dogpiling, I’ll allow two player rolls, but the second roll can be added after the first is seen. It’s basically the help action, we just play it that the less expert character said or did something that broke the mental block of the first, like the “speak, friend, and enter” vs. “say ‘friend’ and enter” riddle.
* I don’t like the ‘flammable grease’ thing. Too many people think slow-burning flammables should behave like gasoline when it’s just the opposite. Lamp oil in particular is _supposed_ to burn slow so it provides light for a longer time. Likewise, grease is meant to provide a cooking medium or lubrication in situations where you would specifically not want it to burn away. I would, however, let players reflavor the spell so it conjures an ice patch instead of actual grease.
* Floor rolls are 1s (or max in the few cases when lower is better). Get a dice tray or whatever it takes to avoid spreading caltrops on the floor.
* The “rule of cool… with sacrifice” idea is good, though I might charge something more significant than inspiration or a hit die so it’s not happening all the time. I liked the XP to Level 3 scene in which one character loses a paladin level to get an illithid brain-slug out of a friend’s head.
A house rule I stole was one from Acquisitions Inc which I've been called the 'Perkin's Critical' because its a rule Chris Perkins used. When you land a critical hit the damage is your normal damage is maxed but now you roll for the critical damage. So if you hit them with a greataxe its 12 + 1d12 + Str mod rather than rolling 1d12 and doubling it or rolling 2d12. It guarantees the critical will feel like a critical hit while not denying the joy of rolling damage. Far too many times have I seen crits that are double 1 damage which makes the natural 20 feel pointless. It also works both ways however (though as a DM the curse of never rolling a good nat 20 applies and I can always fudge the dice if I feel it was unfair, like a level 1 wizard getting one shot by dart)
I've used that house rule for ages, without knowing Perkins used it. I came up with the idea on my own, shortly after I had actually seen 2 points of damage done on a critical hit. It also works well for those who try to speed up combat by rolling to hit and damage dice at the same time, since you don't need to roll again if the 20 comes up on the to hit die. Roll a 20 sider to hit and a d8 for damage, and if it scores a crit, just add 8 rather than needing to roll again.
On Ability scores i allow a full mulligan if 3 or more scores are at 9 or lower cuz that just feels bad.
I agree with the no 1s on lvl up but i also take it a step further and allow either median or what you rolled (whichever is higher)
On health potion in particular i like to say that you can take an Action to drink it for max heal. But, if you BA drink it you have to roll the (d4s +x) as normal.
i like that hold a spell thing imma steal it 😋.
solid vid mike👍🏽
My reroll rules are (assuming 4d6 drop lowest) is you can but don't have to reroll if you either a) have 3 or more scores under 10 or b) don't have a single score over 14
One new house rule I've been toying with is around concentration (I know, taboo!). I've felt as a player there's nothing worse than when I get a creature with one of my powerful concentration spells and then it instantly shrugs it off on its turn with no benefit having been had, or with legendary resistances on big bads.
So if a creature makes their save against a concentration spell in my games, rhey just sheug off thr effects, not the spell. the player can have their character maintain concentration on the spell until their turn and, as a bonus action can try reapply the effects with a fresh saving throw by the target. A fail reapplied the effect and a pass means the PC loses the spell. They also cannot cast anything above a cantrip, as if they cast a first level spell, on their turn if they use the bonus action or cast first, thereby losing the concentration.
MY HRS - these fix most of my issues - 3up3down stats. Hit points go negative, death saves as soon as you hit zero or less. Saves don’t reset until long rest (-1 save) or restoration spell. We use the same potion tule. We also allow the hold spell mechanism.
I most appreciate the skill dogpiling strategy. :)
For hit points, I use the same rule as you (reroll the one), but I add this one : if the player is not satisfied with the roll, he can reroll the die, but whatever the result is (even a one) you keep it.
one of my main house rules is specific too a single cantrip. true strike, as written is just an ability that anyone with weapons training can just do, and the spell is an action that just says "your next attack roll has advantage" I've seen people play sorcerer to quicken spell bonus action attacks after using this and rogues taking magic initiate to have it and its really not even as broken as some other options you can take. it just gives players another cool option. even had someone play a half-orc crossbow fighter who's flaw was that he was really anal-retentive about his shooting and would force himself to use the true strike ability on every attack for a while. how hard true strike was nerfed from jump just kinda irked me so I've tried it out this way for a while and I've liked the results. the spell version hasn't been a go-to for anyone as of yet and the regular ability version has all the same niche uses as the current spell does which is limited enough to keep it in line as well.
Unsurprising the I like most of your opinions Mike. But, I was genuinely was surprised by some.
I especially love adding some 'cost' to the rule of cool, and I really hope you elaborate with some scenarios/examples soon. Sounds super interesting!
-For HP (and starting gold actually) I use the logic of 'you can't roll lower than your passive perception' which was confirmed by the developers. Which is that you can roll or take the average, but you can't roll lower than your class average for HP. Yes it makes for hardier characters, but I don't think you need to gamble in D&D when doing leveling. So for creation I let people roll their gold and compare it to the total cost of their starting equipment, and take whichever is better.
-I'm experimenting with a 'group inspiration pool' that I sort of cobbled together from Pugmire, because I don't like the idea of capping people at 1 inspiration but I also don't like the idea of them having more than 1 inspiration? I admit its complicated, lol. But basically if someone would normally qualify for inspiration but already have a point, it goes into a pool for the party. When the party pool hits a number of 'phantom inspiration' equal to the party number, I let the group have a floating inspiration that they can share in a clinch. So if the group agrees, you can use the group point if you don't have your own for a dramatic moment.
-A holdover of older editions I think, I allow people to start with bonus languages equal to their Int mod. I don't like how limiting 5e is on languages (basically Common + 1 + from background kind of sucks)
-I had a whole weird list of house rules for attribute rolling, but in my most recent game I gave up and went point buy. But after a lot of mathing, I decided to allow 32 points, and you can spend twelve points for a 16 in an a attribute and drop from 8 to 6 in an attribute for up to 3 bonus points (-1 for 7 and -3 total for 6), though I don't know if I'm likely to do that again. I'm also experimenting with the Dragonlance model (bonus feats at 1st and 4th) though potentially replacing the bonus feat at 4th for a modified ASI system. This creates a slightly beefier character but not one so overpowered like in rolling that it breaks the game.
My games are run (not by me!) completely online. Our one DM allows for action, bonus action, reaction and free item interaction. So in one session we had to gather specific potion ingredients and I was allowed to us my item interaction to pick a flower we needed every turn. DM also allows for "Rule of Cool" so if you can describe something you want to try in a way to grab their attention and they like it then it's allowed, but you always have to describe first before getting the yes or no for it or if a roll is required depending on what you're trying to do and your stats: ie. if you want to try and "Skyrim" your way up a cliff and you're naturally dexterous then it's an easy thing, but if you're less dexterous then an athletics roll is required.
So with magic, if a spell takes an action, it takes 3-6 seconds to cast, regardless of when it’s released. This is because a round of combat is 6 seconds and everything (as rules are written) that happens in one round happens at the same time. So if you charge up a spell, you are still using that energy, and it still takes those 3-6 seconds. Just because you don’t point the energy at anything doesn’t mean it’s not spent. For example, just because you don’t point a fan at something to cool it off doesn’t mean the fan is not still on and using power.
I have all these houserules except my rolling for stats and hp rules are a little different. When rolling for stats, I let people roll 4d6, reroll any 1s or 2s, and drop the lowest one to get your score. So far, it's worked out well. Can't even be sure anymore if that's in the book or not but it's worked for now. With HP, if they roll under the average, I let them just take the average. I rather they have above average HP so if things go down, they can't say that it's because they rolled low on their HP. With the grease spell, I explained that it's more of an oil slick but if they spend an extra spell slot, it can have this added attribute. I didnt let it stay there for longer than a full combat round but that seemed more than enough for that particular moment. So we ended up with a similar ruling but in a slightly different way. I feel like houseruling stuff can be necessary because of the flavor and vibe of the game and simply put, the rules don't cover every single type of situation possible. I have tinkered with the idea of spending resources in various ways. Especially the idea of spending hit die in various ways, not just for healing during a short rest. I forget what video I was watching that talked a bit about spending hit die for other things and I figured that it seemed like a good idea to have a player spend a hit die if they wanted to use a feature that they ran out of. It might make them think a little more about how many hit die they use during that next rest or if they need to take a rest at all. I've never had an issue with a PC being overpowered so I try to rule in a player's favor as much as possible. My very first houserule was that in the event of a tie, the PC always won. So if they were defending and there was a tie, it went to them. If they were attacking and there was a tie, it went to them. It just felt fair and showed my players that I really was on their side.
So I'm just pondering on this now, not fully thought out or something I've made a rule yet. But got to thinking about a couple of things that connect to me from this video discussion. Mentioning that Inspiration points should have been called something different and suggesting "Story Points". So I'm thinking about making Story Points a thing, that work in other ways than JUST inspiration points. That maybe they can get story points from good story telling or roleplaying. Doing something in a really cool epic way, that would be cinematic on screen maybe. And you can accumulate any number of story points. And then you can spend Story Points to do various things or achieve various things that you can imagine being done in movies that aren't exactly covered by the rules. A lot of it follows under the rules of cool. Various things having different costs. So then I think about the rule of cool allowing players to do something that gives an advantage that they then try to do constantly. Maybe say that they have to spend a story point to do so. Or a few story points. Want to light the web spell on fire? That sounds cool. It's a great story moment, so you can do it IF you spend a story point or more at the DMs discretion.
I personally let people who ready a spell cast it (or hold it again) on their next turn if the conditions are not met before then
It means you're still tied to using the spell but at a lower risk of wasting it
A specific house rule I have that I occasionally get flak for is: I ban revivify and raise dead. I hate both spells cause it makes death feel super cheap. Death saves already give a ton of leeway to help downed party members, I don’t need the cleric just hopping in with a revivify and making death meaningless. A character being at 2 failed death saves should be utterly terrifying because that character is 1 bad roll away from being basically permanently dead. I also feel like some of the best role play I have seen comes from PC death so it sucks to just rob that with a 3rd level spell
One rule I use when building characters: If you take the standard array, you can lower two skill points to raise one skill point. Example; lower strength by 1, lower wisdom by 1, raise charisma by 1. That way you can specialize, but at an increasingly greater cost. The more choices I can give my players, the more interesting the game will be.
Why not just do point buy at that point, since Standard Array is a legal point buy anyway?
I'm getting the grease on fire thing a lot in my game and I ruled it as, it does 1d6 fire damage at the beginning of their turn if they are still in the area. If the fire gets worse or they are covered, the damage goes up.
That last one I would build into the lore and mechanics of the world. like they know they are able to beseech the God's favor with personal sacrifice. I think XP2level3 talked about this too with one of his players sacrificing class levels to bring someone back to life.
For Thunderwave I would argue you are running RAW, the point of origin lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect, that can be the bottom face of the cube. Cube rules also indicate the point of origin isn't in the area of effect unless the caster decides it is. This suggests, if you are imagining a battle map scenario, that the origin square is in the cube, not one square to the side of the cube.
That’s excellent reasoning!
Rolling a 1 for hit points indeed is frustrating. But rerolling the 1 causes the 2 to become the new frustrating number.
So instead of using that house rule, I like to go with the 1 and tell the player, they can earn additional hit points by role playing extra training sessions in the characters down time.
For example, if the character has one week off, the player could say his character stands up early in the morning does more push ups than normal and goes jogging for 3 hours. The rest of the day, the character may do something else.
After the week, I let the player roll one additional die. Which one depends on his actual hit points compared to the average hit points he might have. If he is far below average he may roll 1d8+con, if he is far above he may roll 1d4+con, and if he is close to average he may roll 1d6+con.
Yes, players could max this system to get to max hit points. But I have never seen this happen. People are only interested in it, if they are far below their average.
Another way to think about the not casting a spell you readied is that you poured your energy into the spell and held it back, RAW this expends the energy, but with the houserule you absorb the energy back (since it wasn't released) and "regain" the spell slot that you expended. I don't know this sort of made sense in my head
When it comes to Stat rolls at my table I do 4D6 reroll 1s and do 7 rolls drop lowest. It makes for higher stats which Im good with. Most importantly I have all players show their block and table decides which Block is used for everyone. That Block becomes the Standard Array for my table for that campaign. This makes it the most fair that everyone has the same Stat block to work from.
In Re: Readying a Spell. This is likely where you, in houseruling an alternate rule, are the one misunderstanding the context of how spells are "timed" relative to Action, Bonus Action and Reaction scaled timing. While no definitive amount of time is noted for casting a given spell in terms of seconds (unlike back in earlier editions, particularly 2nd), a spell that takes an Action to cast is understood to take at least 2-3 seconds to complete, vs the faster BA spell casting (often a second, in context) and the even faster Reaction spell casting (which takes not only a fraction of second but is understood to even be integrable with casting an in-process spell, which is how a caster can defend their own Action spell with a Reaction Counterspell, for example). In that regard, it makes complete sense that most spells used in combat (usually taking an Action to cast) are cast and then the energy "held" for a couple brief seconds before being released relative to RA. Per the metaphysics of how magic works in DnD, once a spell is cast then that counts as having drawn upon/channeled energy from The Weave (or comparable in non-Faerun based settings) and therefore counts as being expended for the caster in question regardless of the outcome (whether the spell even gets to successfully manifest or not being irrelevant, vis-a-vis how Counterspell causes a spell to be expended regardless). As commented on by Crawford in multiple tweets/interviews, readying a spell is meant/intended to be a risk: the caster had better make sure they are as close to certain as possible about the few seconds window they have to release "x" spell for "y" timing/effect, or else waste the casting. (Or simply ready a cantrip, which draws only upon ambient mystical energies and can be cast any number of times.) The system is already quite generous compared to prior editions in what casters can "get away with" relative to things like being restrained/grappled (grapple doesn't inhibit most casting, while restraining often doesn't sans very specific noted circumstantial aspects), being able to cast underwater (at least one spell before drowning rules come into play), and other things. The risk involved in RA-ing a spell makes a lot of sense.
I understand what you're trying to say, but what Crawford & Co. are noting/asserting really does make sense. (Now, if general spell casting wasn't resource-restricted as it is in DnD metaphysics -- for example, most mages in World of Darkness can cast a given rote/spell without fear of "losing" the casting, so to speak, in this regard -- then what you're noting would make more contextual sense; but DnD, and in particular 5E's, metaphysics are much more resource-restricted than in other settings' metaphysics. Houseruling what you note is fine, of course, for your world... but it honestly sounds like you may have missed a few key conceptual notes relative to how spellcasting works in this regard.)
while what you said makes sense, I still think except for kind of specific situations, getting ready to cast a spell in response to something happening on the battlefield makes sense, you are just reserving that 2-3 seconds of your turn for slightly later in the fight. the spell shouldn't go off INSTANTLY when the trigger happens, but I see no reason to not let a player be ready and start casting fireball or whatever in response to the trigger. and if the trigger never happens, they never started casting, they just wasted their action.
@@Wishuponapancake They key point/distinction, though, in that regard is that that spellcasting is, as noted, more resource and (implied) time-dependent (especially for Action and BA spells) than, say, swinging a sword or similar. That's part of the underlying point: by delaying casting an Action spell to "x" point in the initiative order-of-actions, it undermines part of the essential balance of what Initiative (as a game mechanic) is intended to do. Just as, for counter-example, a warrior can't get their Extra Attack on their Ready Action-Reaction (they can only get one attack roll, vs 2+), for casters the mechanical balance comes into play that they have to cast the spell "on their turn", holding the energy for a couple/few seconds, then hopefully either react to the noted trigger or have the energy dissipate. That risk, relative to slot-level spells, is a sensible balance that also makes sense in a magic-is-a-metered-resource setting like DnD. (As noted, the caster can always ready a cantrip -- there's no lost slot/energy, in effect, with losing that, and cantrips are deliberately scaled to increase in terms of having "useful damage" just for this contingency).
It really does make sense both on a mechanical as well as metaphysical level.
I rule that drinking a potion as an Action heals you for the maximum amount, but you have to roll if you drink it as a Bonus Action
with low (or high) stats I normally adjust them to equal 72 and that there is something very low like a 6 or 7 amd ,ore than one stat equal or over 15
16, 9, 11, 12, 12, 9 was rolled and adjusted to 16, 6, 11, 12, 12, 15
I want to say that it was 3e, maybe 3.5, but there was a rule in the book that when the players rolled for stats and their bonuses added up to +1 total then the character needed to be re-rolled. I don't run 5e, and use Pathfinder 2e these days, but I am surprised to learn that this rule did not carry forward into the current edition of D&D.
If you drop prone and shoot the thunder wave up it would hit everything around you that is taller than about knee height. Of course this could put you in a bad position.
About thunder wave. Your interpretation could be RAW if the player ducks and casts the spell 4 feet above the floor centred above their head.
Love the grease spell ruling!
Thanks!
Gonna put down my stuff because I just love talking about this.
-I do 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest number, which tends to get people like... One negative stat, a few mediocre ones, and one or two really good plus 3 or 4.
I have a rule that if you have two negative stats, you can replace one with a 10. I've never seen someone get 3 negative stats, but if that did happen, I might allow only one 10 replacement, or give them the option of a point buy.
This means characters are strong out of the gate, but since most people want to get feats and not +2, it means the numbers tend to work in the end. It also just feels good for the player. They feel well equipped.
And ultimately, I don't think it ruins balance or fantasy. (But I might change it in 6e depending on what they do with feats.)
-For hit dice, I rule that if you roll anything less than the median+1, you keep median+1, anything else, you keep.
So if you roll a d6 and got a 1, you get 4hp. If you rolled a 5, you get 5. If you roll a 3, you get 4. Etc.
This means that players, again, tend to be strong, but there is some randomness. A range of possiblilities that skews higher, but isn't at the maximum. Almost no one will ever have actual maximum health.
-Ditto on potions. Out of combat, potions heal for maximum automatically.
-I keep the penalty on spells because spellcasters are generally more versatile.
-Really like the Grease spell alt rules.
-Politely disagree on thunderwave.
-YES, the DM trade. If you are willing to sacrifice, it's got my attention. It's like bartering with an Archfey. Lol. What will you give me in return?
I’ve used this before for new players, it’s great!
@@SupergeekMike Oh shoot! I'm editing more stuff in while watching the video.
😅
Which one were you referring to?
@@ncpolley Oh sorry, I misread your first point, I thought you meant rolling 7 times and dropping the lowest! It's something I've used for new players a couple of times
@@SupergeekMike I get you, I get you.
I like using inspiration to reroll a crap roll
I like the rule of cool, but I'm very wary of using it with spells, cause it makes the casters overshadow melee characters even more (and even earlier in the campaign) than they already do. With non-magical stuff or magical-nonmagical combos - sure, Rule of Cool all the way. But with spells I'm pretty rigid usually.
I've also seen DMs allow cool combos the first time and giving inspiration for it, but then banning it cause it's too good, and I'm fine with that as a player.
I also allow to use health potions as a bonus action on yourself, it only makes sense, I've seen this house rule in every campaign I've played in, it should be the default.
For skill checks I have a max of two. I tell them this represents the two best attempts and let them decide who's doing it.
Leveling up I have them roll their hit dice with advantage.
The potions I'm torn on. I've always kept it to a single action. But I think your suggestion might be a good compromise. Because casting a Spell is a full action and yet if it's in potion form it's a bonus? That just seems strange.
Grease fire -- since two players contribute action economy to it, perhaps allowing it to cause extra damage is ok.
i know I'm late, but I'm guessing the "readying a spell wastes the spell slot" thing is mostly for balancing. spellcasters are substantially more powerful than martial classes for their strength and versatility (esp at higher levels). they also can only cast one spell per turn as a balancing measure...
Personal House Rule: No Casting Silence On Another Player! Had a magic user that used to do this to my character ANYTIME he felt like and we eventually got into an argument over it because, as I told him, you're essentially stopping me from playing and treating me AND my character like a child who needs to be shut up. It's not fair, it breeds resentment and tbh casting Silence on another player is just a dick move unless they're under mind control or something like that.
Definitely!
As a dm if this happened in my game I'd say there was some sort of magical anomaly or whatever makes sense for the setting and make it backfire at the player casting it. If it happened a second time same outcome and a conversation with the player after the session. Depending on the results of the conversation 3rd time and onward either the player would be dropped from the group or if it was in a funny playful kind of way that wasn't meant to be toxic roll an additional d20 when casting 1-10 spell hits you and target player decides when to drop 11-20 hits as intended and you decide when to drop
8:15 I had similar experience but in reverse.
Rather than casting Grease and setting it on fire...
Cast Burning Hands while another player throws bottle of lantern oil at the same target.
Part of Burning Hands is "The fire ignites any flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried." so why not add more flammable objects?
I use point buy. That makes it fair.
This is how some friends of mine roll stats:
Roll 10+2d4 six times.
Make two lists.
Choose one.
We love it.
Level 3 characters feel SO much more fun to use.
Our favorite method has been to have a deck of 12 cards, each with some value between 4 and 9. You shuffle up and make 6 piles. Your ability scores are the sums of each of the 6 piles.
The most straightforward card values are just 2 each of 4-9. That said, the DM has leeway to adjust them however they choose, if you want 16 to be the maximum, you can certainly remove the 9s for some other number that hits the power level you want for your campaign.
@@eepopgames2741 interesting!!
The face at 2:49 was too funny for a house rules video lmao.
The only one I really don't like is allowing to reroll 1s for hit points. Reasons are:
- I don't really like rulings or house rules that allow to "cheat" or ignore the dice, to me dice are what makes the game so fun and unpredictable.
- D&D 5e characters are already unkillable, even at low levels. One of my players is playing a paladin with 13 AC and 15 HP at lv 2 and he managed to take down 2 drow guards on his own in one of the encounters; it felt epic and dramatic, but no one was really worried that he was going to die.
I definitely dislike the idea that we ask casters to burn a very limited resource in addition to their action (not to mention asking them to maintain concentration) if their trigger doesn't occur, but allow everyone else to hold actions without the additional consequence and difficulty. There are some spells where maybe the effects are a bit too crazy when you can time them perfectly - but hey, why not reward player creativity?
Where I come down on the other side is potion chugging. I think it's far too powerful to allow a fighter to drink a potion every round and still attack. If they want to spend an entire feat on it? Fine, that's acceptable and akin to gaining an attack. At baseline, that offensive/defensive/supportive choice should be the same as it is for a dedicated healer in my opinion. Sometimes things have to be annoying to help make those dedicated roles shine. My explanation is always that drinking a potion isn't easy. How long would it take you to pop a cork and drink a glass of wine while someone is trying to stab you? Well, your character can do it in 6 seconds without getting skewered - that's pretty good!
When it comes to skill dog-piling, I suppose one has to sacrifice some verisimilitude in the name of game balance, but putting hard limits on it still often really bugs me. Like, if the characters were actual people trying to accomplish something in an actual physical space, and a member of the group does a bad job at something, the rest of the group is going to *see them do a bad job* and try their hand at the thing. It always just takes me way out of the experience when the DM has to say "Sorry, your party member took a cursory glance around the room while investigating for evidence in the bad guy's office and didn't see anything incriminating. No, you're not allowed to look through desk drawers or point out the untouched filing cabinets, you're only allowed to try things once and that's that!"
That's just one random example off the top of my head, but there are countless other scenarios where making a single attempt at something just makes zero sense. As with a lot of things in D&D, usually the best bet is being flexible and going one way or the other when it's appropriate to the situation.
This is where time is important. A room search isn’t a glance, it’s a full commitment. If other players join they Aid, or else they’re doing other things. If someone isn’t happy with the result, they can spend another 10 minutes looking, but time is passing.
In your example, you might even divide it up-did you want to investigate the desk, the filing cabinets, or the closet and bathroom?
I play on roll20 andmy player have slowly started making all rolls private. Idk why I guess for role-playing reasons they don't have to but since they find the secrecy more fun it prevents skill dogpiling which is nice.
I don't get to play in person much. But for cocked, miss drops or floor dice I always point out that if it was a bad roll they wouldn't have kept it so I can't let them keep it if it's good either.
My only disagreement with these rules is the thunderwave spell thing. In 5E the spell specifically says "a square centered on you" meaning that you are in the center of the radius of the spell
Understandable; I’ve just seen this present an issue so many times that I generally apply both versions.
I don't like to allow roll dice for stats. Pointbuy and average hitpoints is more ballanced, and give the player more controll over their build.
Save the dicerolls for stuff that happens at the table.
I haven't come to a stable stance on readied spells. RAW 5E, you expend the spell on ready, which is a lot of investment. RAW PF2e, you can only ready a single or free action, and most spells are two actions in the three action model. It isn't a good option in either system.
I don't think the RAW Thunderwave is different from what you are describing, or I am missing something. (Granted I am not super familiar as I've not really played many casters, let alone use this spell.) However, if it is a cube and the point of origin is self, by the rules wouldn't placing yourself in the center of the face of the cube hit every direction? The rules don't dictate the cube face you choose has to be vertical it can be the horizontal face, and then any spot on that face can be the point of origin so it can still be somewhat directed in a direction but still hit all around you. Or am I misreading something? (I haven't really played all that much DnD, I basically have 1 character that has had any meaningful amount of play, and that is a barbarian so no spells for me)
That’s definitely how it SHOULD work, or seems to work, based on how the spell is written - but there’s a sentence in the chapter before that says that a spell with a cube effect is cast with the caster on the side, not in the center. Jeremy Crawford, one of the designers of 5e, has confirmed this was their intent for thunderwave. But as you pointed out, and as has been proven by SO many other players drawing the same conclusion, that isn’t remotely clear when reading the spell.
@@SupergeekMike I suppose I should have been clearer I meant if the person is in the center of the bottom face of the cube they still hit all around them, well not below. So I guess not quite all around them, if you are in a very hectic 3 dimensional battle
Elaborate if you would, please, about the inspiration re-roll; do they have to decide to re-roll before they know the result of their initial roll?
Yeah usually that's how I rule it, same as with something like bardic inspiration.
Unpopular Opinion: I dont let my players reroll 1s on HP. If they didn't want to take that risk, they should've taken average instead, that's what it's there for. You choose to roll, you take the result, even when its bad.
Fair enough! ☺️
I don't even allow the option to roll. Characters should be advancing as a group, each having proportionally as many hit points as that class is supposed to have. I don't want someone performing under par because they rolled a couple of 1's in a row trying to get lucky.
Hey Mike! I’ve been DMing for a little over a year but I still sometimes have a hard time understanding certain rules and I don’t know if I’m just misreading things or just misunderstanding things. Is there a way I could potentially talk to you about the things I’m having some difficulty with? Or do you have a good suggestion for me?
P.S. I’m really enjoying your channel man. Thanks for the awesome videos.
Thank you! Probably the best way to ask is on the Discord, I'm pretty active there and there are also lots of other smart people who can help! We have a "DM Advice" channel that is really valuable for just such a thing :)
@@SupergeekMike Awesome! Thank you!
03:15 I disagree with you here, I like the rule that you need to consume the spell slot and add risk to holding your action to cast a spell. I think it sells the fiction of power crackling in a Wizard's hands as they wait for the opportune moment to release, but I also think it's important because spellcasting is just so much more powerful then the majority of actions a character will take.
A Martial character who holds their action can only take one swing, or push/shove or take any number of suboptimal actions with the flexibility holding an action provides. Casting Fireball on your turn or on someone else's turn isn't suboptimal. Making it not cost a spell slot encourages a style of play where a Wizard can just wait around the corner repeatedly without risk and reward. If they make that tactical decision with an element of risk it's all the more satisfying when it pays off.