Questions tagged [house-rules]
House rules are small fan-created additions and replacements to core rules in a rules set, and this tag should be used when there are locally-created rules at the core of the question. In most cases, they are not officially sanctioned by the designer, in contrast to optional rules (see the [optional-rules] tag). For creation of substantial new content or rules subsystems, use the [homebrew] tag instead.
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What is the conversion rate for Sorcery Points to Spell Points?
On page 288-289 of the DMG, there is an optional rule: Variant: Spell Points.
I frequently use this optional rule at my table. I'm interested in streamlining resource-management even further, by ...
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Would it be fair to use 1d30 (instead of rolling 2d20 and taking the higher die) for advantage rolls?
Would it be fair to use 1d30 - in place of 2d20 and taking the higher die - for advantage rolls?
Recently I have acquired several d30 dice in a bag of factory seconds. I want to offer my players the ...
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How does this change to the opportunity attack rule impact combat?
My DM has introduced a house rule affecting opportunity attacks, and I am trying to understand the implications of this change.
The new rule is this:
You can make an opportunity attack when a ...
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Is this change to the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style balanced?
Here is my modified version of the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style.
Two-Weapon Fighting
Once per attack, when you engage in two-weapon fighting and before rolling, you can take a -5 to hit for ...
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How would it unbalance gameplay to rule that Weapon Master allows for picking a fighting style?
Context
For a new campaign I'm building a protector aasimar kensei. We're using the Point Buy system, so being an unarmored monk I managed to raise my default AC to 15 (17 with Agile Parry), at level ...
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Would the Life Transference spell be unbalanced if it ignored resistance and immunity?
I want to create a Abjuration wizard (PHB, p. 115-116) that uses the Life Transference spell (XGtE, p. 160) and the Arcane Ward feature to heal people, but I've heard people saying Life Transference ...
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How would it unbalance gameplay to remove the limitation "requires a free hand to load" for hand crossbows?
Crossbow Expert: hand crossbow & shield
I'm working on stats for royal guards of a homebrew capital – using Guard Captain as template. I gave them a hand crossbow and the Crossbow Expert feat, ...
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Can the DM override racial traits?
In our two-week old campaign, the DM is trying to say I need food or water, or otherwise I'll suffer from exhaustion.
But I am a Warforged Juggernaut, and the Warforged Resilience trait says I don't ...
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Will it cause any balance problems to have PCs level up and gain the benefits of a long rest mid-fight?
I am planning an encounter for 4 level 2 players and I am planning to have them level up mid combat. I wanted to describe it sort of like a power within awakening like many popular animes have. To do ...
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Is this Multiple Enemies rule a house rule?
I found online a cheat sheet stating the following rule for Multiple Enemies/Swarm:
4 creatures = 1 creature of highest level + 1, minimum +2 damage bonus
That is different from the official one ...
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Do these rules for Critical Successes and Critical Failures seem fair?
I'm thinking about implementing the following houserules at my table to try to bring back the concept of "Critical Successes" by piggybacking off the Advantage/Disadvantage system.
Critical Success
...
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Would "upcasting" extra Free Access slots into the next tier thereof be balanced?
I'm currently playing a spellcaster who's making a lot of short dips into the lower paths, to the point that I believe I may have learned all the Free Access spells that I am actually interested in ...
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How would it imbalance gameplay to allow a multiclassed wizard/sorcerer to copy wizard spells in a spellbook for which one has spell slots?
Background
I'm playing an eladrin wizard in a homebrew game of a friend. After hitting level 6 I'm thinking of multiclassing into sorcerer, because it fits thematically. I'm an accidental traveler ...
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How would a house-rule allowing the Wild Magic Surge sorcerer feature to work with cantrips as well affect its power level?
I’m preparing to run a 5e campaign, and want to make a change to the Wild Magic sorcerer's Wild Magic Surge feature (PHB, p. 103). Instead of the description saying:
Immediately after you cast a ...
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How does allowing Sneak Attack with improvised weapons imbalance gameplay at the table?
Context
Following up on Can Sneak Attack be used when hitting with an improvised weapon?
By RAW:
Not unless you have an ability that allows Sneak Attack with an improvised weapon
Or, at DM's ...
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What are the balance implications of using passive Arcana to identify spells for counterspell?
Xanathar's Guide to Everything (p. 85) gives an optional rule if a character wants to identify a spell:
Sometimes a character wants to identify a spell that someone else is casting or that was ...
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Would this house-rule that treats advantage as a +1 to the roll instead (and disadvantage as -1) and allows them to stack be balanced?
I've been playing Open Legend RPG and I love that the Advantage in that game can be stacked. I love it when players try to strategize and stack as much advantage as possible.
I want to do this in D&...
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What are the balance implications behind making invisible things auto-hide?
This question was inspired by a comment on this question.
Normally when a 'thing' (Usually creature, but type in my games doesn't always mean as much as it should by RAW) turns invisible anyone ...
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Faster inventory management [closed]
I have tended to hand-wave weight limits and encumbering rules and focus on fun, but the bulk of random items starts to really build up to ridiculous levels (even with a bag of holding). Doing time-...
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How can I, as DM, avoid the Conga Line of Death occurring when implementing some form of flanking rule?
I’ve heard this phrase being thrown around sometimes on other game tables. Apparently, it describes a straight line of melee combatants on a grid, alternating between members of two opposing groups. ...
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Is it balanced to take features from different sorcerous origins at the corresponding sorcerer levels?
For a new campaign, I made a half-elf kid, abducted by a demon who changed his magic origin from a Draconic Bloodline (for cold damage) into a Shadow Magic (from Xanathar's Guide to Everything).
At ...
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How can I reskin the Headband of the Ninjitsu for a steampunk campaign? [closed]
My DM is running a steampunk Pathfinder campaign, and he's banned strictly magical objects and weapons. However, he has said that if we can reskin it to fit within the world (i.e. a wand is more akin ...
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Replacing Wild Shape (5e) [closed]
I encountered this problem with one of my players. They wanted to play a druid character. Everything was fitting except that the druid didn't use wild shape, the character had kind of a "This form was ...
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Are there any outlying considerations if I treat donning a shield as an object interaction during the first round of combat?
A shield takes 1 action to equip (PHB 146). I'm an new DM and would like to allow that in the first round of battle the PC may use the "interact with objects" time (PHB 190) to equip its shield, if ...
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Would these multi-classing house rules cause unintended problems?
I'm part of an RPG Group that plays multiple campaigns in multiple systems. Lately, two of our members have announced interest in a D&D 5e campaign, which isn't a system this group has played ...
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Would giving dwarves specific racial proficiencies instead of Weapon Familiarity be unbalanced?
I have a player that wants to play a dwarven druid. He’s flavoring the class as a loner that wander the tunnels protecting his settlement from the monsters that lurk in caves. However he is slightly ...
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Consequences/Downsides of Allowing Ranged Defence (Dodge) with Fight?
The House Rule Proposed
I'm intent on making the following rule addition/change in my campaigns:
In addition to parries and blocks in mêlée combat, the Fight skill also covers training in dodging ...
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How much damage would be appropriate for a creature pushed into a wall to take?
In our current D&D 5e game, one of the players created a Variant Human Monk that gains one feat in exchange of only having two ability score increases. The player chose the Martial Adept feat, ...
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what changes can be made to the combat and health mechanics which will nerf healing word [closed]
I'm currently running a campaign and I have two casters that can cast healing word. And whenever I had a big melee enemy reduce them to zero HP by pounding them into the ground, they bounce back up ...
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Is there a way to add a house rule that bypasses all restrictions in PCGEN?
I have some house rules that I want to implement, like allowing more than 1 drawback and giving free evolution points to summoners. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to just bypass the built in ...
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Would it harm game balance to allow the Haste action to be used to Ready one of its allowed actions?
Normally, haste grants the following benefit:
[The target] gains an additional action on each of its turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage,...
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What are the balance implications of allowing Forge Clerics to gradually create items worth over 100gp with multiple uses of Artisan's Blessing?
I am currently DM'ing a campaign, in which one of the PCs is a Forge Cleric.
Artisan's Blessing lets Forge Clerics conduct a ritual to craft non-magical items worth no more than 100gp. Raw materials ...
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Are there any balance issues with allowing thrown Javelins to be drawn for free like ammunition weapons?
Weapons that have the ammunition property, such as bows and crossbows, can be used without having to worry about the action economy with regards to the ammunition itself (such as arrows or bolts) as ...
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What are the pros and cons of allowing a save each turn against the Levitate spell?
Consider the spell levitate (2nd level), which allows the caster to lift a hostile creature off the ground and hold it in place. It is easy to make the comparison to spells like hold person (2nd level)...
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As a DM, how much freedom does one have to create new rules for use in game?
In order to add customization to my game, I'd like to add new rules that change certain traits or strengths from different races and classes. Is this allowed or not?
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How should I handle movement when one character isn't engaged in combat yet?
How should I handle movement when one character isn't engaged in combat yet?
Our house rule is that if you're not in combat or if the DM isn't having you move at your character's speed (like in a ...
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Would a PC with advantage on Intimidation and disadvantage on Charisma checks be balanced?
I’m making a fighter who was tortured in the past. He has a badly healed broken nose, one of his ears was cut off, his face was branded, etc.
I was thinking it would be neat for him to have advantage ...
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What would be a reasonable price to have a lawyer on retainer? [closed]
My players have several times run afoul of the law in their game and have recently been wanting to hire a lawyer. One player was arrested and is awaiting charges for sedition.
How would a lawyer ...
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Instead of rolling for every creature hit by a spell, can we reasonably use a single additional die for the number of hits?
I will preface this question by stating that the hypothetical situation proposed below will obviously only work as long you have a die with a number of faces equal to the number of enemies.
Scenario
...
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Would this house rule make sources of light useable in combat without taking away from how other usable combat items work?
Lately my players have been venturing without light sources such as torches, lanterns.
They've been making up for it by casting light on rocks and throwing them ahead, but they still often don't have ...
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Would it cause balance issues to allow Sneak Attack damage on an attack made with a previously hidden weapon?
I've already asked a few questions on this topic (e.g. How to handle weapons having been hidden with sleight of hand?) but this one is a bit different.
In one of my campaigns I have a player playing ...
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How to handle weapons having been hidden with sleight of hand?
In the 5e Player's Handbook, rules are given on hidden weapons with sleight of hand. However, it doesn't say if there is any benefit to the hidden weapons or what it should be like.
Can a hidden ...
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Would adding daily rolls for insanity to Curse of Strahd be excessive for a party of 6?
I'm planning to run Curse of Strahd for my D&D group after we finish our current campaign. It's a group of 6 players plus the DM. According to the book, six players is the recommended upper limit ...
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Is a DM supposed to be against the party? [closed]
I'm a really really new player. Is it good etiquette for a DM to get upset that you're killing or beating their encounter?
A guy said he would DM for us in a one-shot. Before we ever started he ...
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Can templates be made conditional? And if yes, how could that be balanced?
I was looking at the Shade template mentioned in the back of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book (I'm not copying the template here because I'm not sure if that would violate a copyright) and ...
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What is the best way for players to create their own NPCs to aid them in their adventures? [closed]
Has anyone tried allowing players to have NPCs of their own? For example, a Wizard may want to employ a warrior style body guard. How would a player go about creating their own NPC? If they can ...
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Would it be balanced to allow the darkvision spell to target multiple creatures when cast with higher-level spell slots?
The Darkvision spell, by default, can target only one creature and gains no benefit from upcasting (= using a spell slot higher than the spell's level).
You touch a willing creature to grant it the ...
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Is this houserule about unarmed creatures balanced?
I'm fairly well-acquainted with 5e rules, and realised recently that, as far as I know, being unarmed in melee combat imposes no penalty at all to AC, nor confers any advantage to an armed attacker.
...
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What do I do about a game-breaking ruling on how summoning works?
I'm playing in a 5e campaign, and one of the other players convinced the DM to let him summon animals inside of other animals - for example, summoning a wolf inside of a cow.
The player has exploited ...
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Consequences of allowing more than one Lore Sheet
It is my understanding that the core rules intention is that every PC have one and only one lore sheet.
What is the consequences of allowing a player to access more than one lore sheet? The things ...
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