My Home Rules

Over time and experience, I’ve amassed a set of house rules that I implement that supercede the ruleset of D&D. I tend to favour the Rule of Cool as a thing and am also not a fan of rules lawyering

Rule of Cool

If something is suggested or happens that would make the game more interesting, roll for it! This may even be known as a bullshit roll

---

Game Etiquette

D&D can be played in many ways, with lots of different directions that can be followed. The games I run, are more RP heavy with player creativity being the focus. That being said, the most important thing in a game is for everyone at the table to have fun, and I favour games that don’t abuse the mechanics of D&D, focussing more on player creativity and thinking outside the normal rules. Below are some groundrules that I expect players to follow, if for some reason you don’t agree with these, my apologies, but my games aren’t for you

• Turn up on time to sessions. I get that there can be external factors that may make sessions unmakeable, but I expect there to be at least a day’s notice, preferably a week’s so the session can be rescheduled. If a player doesn’t turn up the day of, the session will happen without them, and repeated occurences will result in the player being written out of the campaign
• Be respectful of other player’s choices. Sometimes players choose to do something that may not be seen as “optimal”, usually because there’s in character reasons to do so. This does not mean it’s ok to berate the player for that decision, and it will usually result in additional RP to find out why something happened. Don’t backseat game
• Be respectful of players being uncomfortable. During a Session 0, we will outline some matters that players don’t want in the game, or are uncomfortable being around. This means that some of these subjects will not happen in game
• Pay attention. I expect players to be present in session, most of the game will be theatre of the mind, but combat will also happen. I understand that turns can go quite slowly, but I also expect for players to think about their turn in advance, although you can’t plan for every eventuality, which is why it’s important to pay attention
• Break time. During sessions, it’s perfectly fine for a player to be right back, just tell the group, and the game will continue unless the player is needed. Preferably however, have a headset so you can at least listen to what’s going on. There will also usually be a 15 minute break at generally the halfway point of a session’s allotted time, and potentially a second break if there’s something special happening and the players want to continue. The game will continue only once everyone is back in this case

---

The Golden Rule

DMs have the final say

In matters where discussions are happening, at the end of the day, whatever the DM decides is what should be followed, if more conversation is needed, have it after the session. This might resolve in some “retconning” of things that happened, or adjustments to how the game will be played in the future, but to keep things moving, the DM has the final say.

---

Class Optional Features

These are some optional class features that you can add to augment some of the weaknesses in the classes that I’ve felt through playing them

Sorcerer

Sorcerers feel a bit strange in play, even though they’re my favourite magic based class, and metamagic exists, they have a distinct lack of spells that are only for sorcerer’s and since a sorcerer gets their power from themselves, I thought that it’d be an interesting case for them to create spells where their blood is a component

Spell Creation

A sorcerer may utilise the magic in their blood to create unique spells that can’t be copied, in order to cast the spell, the Sorcerer takes 1d4 slashing or piercing damage, which takes the place of all the spell components. Spells created in this way do not count towards your spells known/prepared, but you may only create a spell when you gain an ASI or Feat

Typically, a spell created in this manner is discussed with the DM, and is only able to be casted by the sorcerer, this can have a myriad of results, some may be more powerful than the average spell as well.

Monk

Monks generally feel unfun to play because there’s so many different things that require Ki, and even though you restore them on a short rest, adding at most 5 I think makes it more fun

Additional Ki

Starting at lvl 1, you gain an additional amount of Ki points equal to your Wisdom Modifier

Warlock

Warlock go eldritch blast. This make warlock do more than eldritch blast

Cantrip Adept

When taking an eldritch invocation that modifies the usage of Eldritch blast, you may apply that modification to any other cantrip using a Spell Attack Roll

---

Class Changes

I try to experience everything at least once, but there’s only so many games to play in, and some classes & subclasses look very uninterested when compared to the other options. So lets change that!

Warlock

I very much dislike the lack of spell variety that warlocks have in actual usage, having insanely limited spell slots. I think a warlock would be more fun if they had a pool of mana to cast spells from instead, letting them use things more lower level spells instead of solely relying on eldritch blast. This would be an optional change that a Warlock may use to replace their Spellcasting Rules

Mana Pool

Warlocks have a pool of mana that they can cast spells with, each spell costs the same amount of Mana Points as the spell level casted at. The amount of Mana Points that a Warlock has is equal to their Warlock level plus half their Proficiency modifier rounded up. Spells cast using Mana Points may only be cast up to half your Warlock levels rounded up, up to 5th level spells (See table below). You regain all expended Mana Points when you finish a short or long rest

Warlock Level	Highest Spell Level
1-2	1
3-4	2
5-6	3
7-8	4
9+	5

---

Spells

Spells can be complicated to get into, here’s some general changes that I think will make things easier to keep track of

For spells that have a duration of 8 hours, and aren’t already rituals and concentration, I’ve found is super easy to forget whether or not they’ve been used, so I decided to add either the Ritual Spell tag or change their duration to 24 hours so you don’t need to keep track of time and just cast at the start of the day, easy!

The following spells now can be cast as Ritual Spells and have a 24 hour duration

Distort Value

Gift of Alacrity

Mage Armor

Snare

Darkvision

Tiny Servant

The following spells now have a 24 hour duration

Encode Thoughts

Aid

Nondetection

Death Ward

Faithful Hound/Mordenkainen’s Faithful Hound

Seeming

Soul Cage

Etherealness

Foresight

Wind Walk

The following spells now can be cast as Ritual Spells

Guardian of Faith

Dream

---

Feats

Some feats are better or more interesting than others

Spell Sniper (from One D&D)

Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic Feature

Repeatable: No

You have learned techniques to enhance your attacks with certain kinds of spells, gaining the following benefits:

Ability Score Increase.	Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20
Bypass Cover.	Your Attack Rolls for Spells ignore Half Cover and Three-Quarters Cover
Casting in Melee.	Being within 5 feet of an enemy doesn’t impose Disadvantage on your Attack Rolls with Spells
Increased Range.	When you cast a spell that has a range of at least 10 feet and that requires you to make an Attack Roll, you can increase the Spell’s range by 60 feet

---

General Play

I like making things matter, and letting cool things happen

Light Weapon Property: Beat Parry (this is in testing)

When a creature targets you with a successful melee attack, make a contested attack roll with your offhand weapon that has the Light property in return, if you beat their roll, this attack and further attacks made as part of a multiattack are made with a -5 penalty to the attack roll, and the next attack you make on that creature has advantage

• Critical Fails: Nat 1s don’t have detrimental affects other than failing the check
• Critical Successes: Nat 20s don’t mean instant success (but usually does)
• DM Inspiration: Every session, everyone gets a DM inspiration (i.e. one reroll per session)
• Helping skill checks: When making skill checks, unless stated otherwise, up to two people can roll, or one person can roll with advantage (if the one giving Help is proficient in the skill)
• Encumbrance: No encumbrance within reason
• Resting: Long rests are usually once per day only, in special circumstances can do two
• Resurrection and Death: Matt Mercer’s resurrection rules apply, this makes death a meaningful thing to recover from for the party and the character as well

---

Combat

Positioning does something!

• Flanking: gives a +2 bonus to attack rolls
• Critical Hits: Roll first set of dice, and do max dmg for second set of dice
• Healing Potions: When used as an action, healing potions heal max, can also be used as a bonus action, but dice need to be rolled
• Vicious Mockery: Targets of vicious mockery don’t get to save if it’s a really good insult/joke
• Non-lethal Damage: Declaring non-lethal damage is only applicable if you describe how it’s non-lethal (also if something is described in a way that’s non-lethal, it will be non-lethal)
• Ammo: No need to track ammo unless special circumstances

---

Character Creation

I like making characters. I like others making characters. I like making characters liking characters. I like characters :)

• Session 0: Takes place during Session 0 as all party members should know each other (even if it’s by just proxy/just meeting them) before the campaign (one shots exclude this)
• Rolling for Health: When rolling for health, players can’t roll lower than their average (before modifiers), this includes rolling hit dice during a short rest
• Intelligence: If a character has a positive Intelligence modifier, they gain additional tool proficiencies equal to half their intelligence modifier (rounded up)
• Multiclassing: No initial multi-classing, during the course of the campaign multi-classing may become available, but only one other class and must be roleplayed
• Races: All official races are fine to be used, legacy races and homebrew as well, just ask first
• Homebrew: Generally homebrew classes/races/spells are preferably not to be used, but ask regardless (if it’s to be considered, it must fit with the setting)

Rolling for stats

Take one stat at 18, then roll 20d6, drop the lowest 5, then distribute the rest of the rolls (3 dice per stat) as you wish to your stats. If you then have no negative stats, and wish to have one, you may decrease one of those stats to at the lowest a 6

Or you may use the stat roller I made (making sure there’s at least 1 18)

Example for stat rolling

Roll 20d6 -> 4, 4, 3, 1, 6, 5, 1, 6, 4, 6, 4, 4, 3, 2, 4, 2, 2, 5, 4, 4 then drop the lowest 5 rolls

The rolls you distribute are 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3. Below is an example of how you could distribute these rolls as stats

Stat	Rolls	Total
Str	4, 3, 3	10
Dex	6, 6, 6	18
Con	max	18
Int	5, 4, 4	13
Wis	4, 4, 4	12
Cha	5, 4, 4	13