The gods being more present is also what my world setting is all about. I never understood why deities do not just come to the realms and do stuffs with their powers. If their powers manifest through clerics and others then why arent just they coming here and invade to make their power grow.
In my world, i do like matt mercer except its not a divine gate. But ratter lesser deities that used to be high level heroes. I call them immortals and their goal is to stop deities from coming to claim our world.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
No Natural 1 or 20 rule. You roll what you roll, do the math, see if you succeed or fail. Some things you just can't do, some you just can't mess up.
Bringing back Take 10 and Take 20. Just makes sense.
Not using the 'Multiclassing Ability Score Prerequisite' rule.
Not using XP. PCs level up based on story/time/pacing considerations. 3rd level will probably come quick, since that's the level most people pick their subclass.
Alignment does not exist, is not a thing, forget it.
Regarding Ability Checks, I don't care for the Automatic failure/Automatic success, but I do think rolling a Natural 1 or 20 should have consequences. If you roll a natural 1, you use half of your skill bonus (negative numbers don't get halved). If you roll a natural 20, you double your skill bonus. So if your thief with a Stealth bonus of +6 rolls a natural 1, he can only add +3 for a total of 4 which is still a failure in most cases, while your thief with a +14 stealth can only add +7 which will give them an 8 which may or may not fail depending on how difficult it was. With a natural 20, the first adds +12 making it a 32 which will succeed in most cases, while the latter will add +28 which totals 48.
Someone on twitter suggested a house rule that I really like. Remove Curse doesn't remove the curse itself. Instead, it provides the caster with the instructions for removing the curse. Simple curses have simple requirements. More elaborate curses can become entire adventures.
TexasDevin, as per the RAW, remove curse do not remove a curse from an object, it only disattune the user from any cursed items freeing the creature from the curse.
but as a side note, many curse cannot be removed by remove curse as it is considered too low a level for certain curses. the said curses have the special text in them that says only greater restoration or wish can remove the curse.
my own homebrew says... depending on the level of the curse, there are 4 levels of cursing...
Basic Curse, cured by remove curse and some basic spiritualism rituals (system i added to my game) Advanced Curse, cured only by greater restoration and advanced spiritualism rituals. Major Curse, cured by greater restoration and or some special super hard to find rituals of spiritualism. Deity's Curse, cured only by the deitys of the world or the spell Wish.
i preffered to keep the faster spell ways instead because not all players likes curses and not all players want to play with it. so its easier for them to grasp the concept of going to a cleric to get the curse removed. while the more curse inclined players love the idea of rituals that may or may not fail. so both side of the coin are helped in their ways and the players have a choice to make, which is another good side of this.
but yeah thats also a good ruling for homebrew, as curses usually means some kind of possession is in effect and thus it should be hard to remove. not just a spell level 2.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Our Campaign is set in a mix between Spelljammer, Warhammer 40k, Eve Online and Steam/diesel punk with Magics, so the houserules are...numerous.
-We uses some classes and spells from Kobold Presses ( we have a Clockwork Wizard and a Prescient knight Figther for example)
-We houseruled that the Warlock Invocation; Thirsting Blade allows to use melee spells attacks in place of normal attacks, meaning that an Hexblade or Pact of the Blade Warlock can use greenflame blade or booming blade twice with the attack action, or mix between them or doing One of them and a normal attack.
-Changed the meh Accursed Specter Warlock class feature for the Soul Syphon class feature from the Blood hunter profane soul subclass, modified it so that it works with attacks and spells, on creatures of a CR equal or higher then the character's level, it fixed the issue with Warlocks ridiculously small Spellslots numbers.
-Cause of the setting(Fantasy ScyFy) Firearms and other more modern equipements is widely available, and all armors types are also made to be Pressurized and with life support systemes for sorties into the Astral plane/space/harmfull environements.
-We Use a modified( or not, i'm not really sure) version of Dark Matter ships stats and combat rules.
-SInce the setting is set in a world where ALL the planes Imploded after a Plane wide catastrophe, everything is mixed up, and magic is used on a daily basis and is widespread, so there's no Class restrictions on spells.
-There's body augmentations, chirurgical interventions/modifications and clockwork prosthetics.
-SPACE HULKS ( giant floating Dungeons/heap of ships carcasses that got stuck together with asteroids and small planetoids, with various treasures/dangers inside), they can appear randomly out of the Nether into the Material Plane, and they stay a certain time before translating back into the Astral Plane and might reappear some place else...
-lots of changes regarding races, Gnomes becames violent cannibalistic raiders, Dwarves got invovled in so many conflicts as defenders that their numbers are few, and they are rarely seen outside their ancestral homes, Orcs became more intelligent and are good at tech and science, Humans as they where basically became Genasi, some races completly dissapeared, and some have isolated themselfs from the rest of the world.
1st level characters start with there max hit die plus there constitution score not there ability score modifier. But they do not get there modifier as they increase levels until level 6...this may seem extreme but I got tired killing parties with like 3 goblins at first level.
Modification to “Thrown” weapon abilities: If the Weapon has the Thrown and Light characteristics you may draw and throw (attack) with it as many times as you have attacks (ie. multi-attacks).
No variant humans, but humans get a free skill. You may choose a skill that you already have taken and get expertise in it.
Respectfully texasdevin, cursed magic item stays cursed even when remove curse is applied. Read the cursed item section in the magic item section of the DMG.
Remove curse only remove the curse on the player not the item.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Web DM recently put a call out on Twitter for people's favorite House Rules. Most of them centered on bringing food and snacks if the DM hosts, which I think is an excellent rule and one that I am happy to say all my players did automatically (although I provide beer, so I think it all works out for all parties)
A few others that caught my attention in a positive way were:
I like this one because it's very low maintenance for everyone. I would treat an ace as +10 or maybe +11, but I don't like the free crit as it is far less relevant to non-combat uses.
I play in one campaign, and run another, both with the same group. Both I and the other DM run in two separate worlds of our own makings. Excluding monsters and races, we mainly stick to just the PHB, DMG and XGtE for our rulesets.
When I DM, I try to keep the actual number of houserules to a minimum. That said, here's the bulk of them:
- Characters all have a new skill, Current Affairs, based on Intelligence. Anytime they are able to choose a proficiency in History or in Investigation, they may instead choose Current Affairs from among the options. It represents knowing about things that are happening in the world RIGHT NOW, either politically, economically, internationally, etc.
- Warlocks can choose any one damage-dealing Warlock cantrip that does not affect an area to be their Specialty Cantrip. The default is Eldritch Blast, but they can choose a different one instead. The Eldritch Invocations that specifically refer to "Eldritch Blast" instead are treated as referring to "your Specialty Cantrip." Eldritch Spear is treated as saying: "When you cast your Specialty Cantrip, its range is doubled; if the range was 5 feet or less, it becomes 15 feet instead. Does not apply to Booming Blade or Primal Savagery." This is to allow Warlocks to not ALL rely on Eldritch Blast.
- If players are conjuring creatures, they get to choose the creatures if they already have the creature's stats available, say with a PHB opened to the correct page, right when the spell is cast. Otherwise, I choose the creatures. This is to prompt players to be ready with their creature selection right when its their turn.
- Player Inspiration can roll over from session to session, and everyone starts the session with Inspiration if they don't already have it. This is because I'm still not great at awarding Inspiration.
- Players can also generate Inspiration themselves from an added ritual in the Ceremony spell.
- Players can use Inspiration after knowing whether a roll succeeds or fails.
- There are also a few other new rituals added to the Ceremony spell for flavor and roleplay purposes (none are any stronger than the ones provided in RAW.)
Below are the House Rules for my current 5e campaign. :D I add as things come up, but for the most part Rule 1-5 existed at the start.
Rule 1: Some Feats will be locked until you reach a certain level. Please ask the GM before picking a feat.
Rule 2: No Backup Characters UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD/RETIRED. Rule 2.A, Paragraph 3 : Backup characters cannot be human (unless your original character was not human).
Rule 3: No Lucky Feat. Tavern Brawler is restricted to Level 4 or higher.
Rule 4: Grappling weapons exist. Contested Grapple Checks and Choke Rolls are a thing.
Rule 5: Sorcerer (Careful Spell Metamagic) - when you cast a spell that could damage (or save throw) friendly characters, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of creatures up to your charisma modifier who will be immune to the spell.
Rule 6: Dragonmark Feats: These can be gained at level 8, but must be discussed with the DM.
Rule 7: Phantasmal Killer (spell): The target of this spell is not able to do a saving throw until after the initial damage and frightened effect is applied for one turn.
Rule 8: Component costs are a thing, potentially, at 3rd level spells and higher.
Falling Damage: 1d6/10 feet cumulative. 10'=1d6, 20'=3d6 (1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the second 10'), 30'=6d6, 40'=10d6, etc.
That actually seems a bit more realistic. At what height do you have the damage cap out? (I presume you have a lower cap, otherwise a 200' fall would do a total of 210d6 damage.)
Falling Damage: 1d6/10 feet cumulative. 10'=1d6, 20'=3d6 (1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the second 10'), 30'=6d6, 40'=10d6, etc.
That actually seems a bit more realistic. At what height do you have the damage cap out? (I presume you have a lower cap, otherwise a 200' fall would do a total of 210d6 damage.)
Have played around with the damage cap in the past. TBH it doesn't really matter much, because a more realistic damage cap still leaves everyone dead :) A typical person will reach terminal velocity while falling in around 1500 feet. And that would be 11,325d6, lol. So often the ruling I have used is that if you fall from more than 100', you're just auto dead. That's 55d6. 110' would be 66d6, average of 200 points of damage.
This was the way that Gygax always ran falling damage in OD&D--it was a mistaken interpretation of his notes to set it at 1d6/10' flat, and they've just always left it that way for reasons I cannot understand. During 5e playtesting I was asking for a change to the cumulative method, but the flat method has survived from 1st ed through 4th, 'tradition' was just going to keep it the same. But when you see a character jump on purpose over 100' off a cliff and literally just pop to his feet and keep chasing the bad guys with over half his HP left, you are motivated to change something :)
Falling Damage: 1d6/10 feet cumulative. 10'=1d6, 20'=3d6 (1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the second 10'), 30'=6d6, 40'=10d6, etc.
That actually seems a bit more realistic. At what height do you have the damage cap out? (I presume you have a lower cap, otherwise a 200' fall would do a total of 210d6 damage.)
Have played around with the damage cap in the past. TBH it doesn't really matter much, because a more realistic damage cap still leaves everyone dead :) A typical person will reach terminal velocity while falling in around 1500 feet. And that would be 11,325d6, lol. So often the ruling I have used is that if you fall from more than 100', you're just auto dead. That's 55d6. 110' would be 66d6, average of 200 points of damage.
This was the way that Gygax always ran falling damage in OD&D--it was a mistaken interpretation of his notes to set it at 1d6/10' flat, and they've just always left it that way for reasons I cannot understand. During 5e playtesting I was asking for a change to the cumulative method, but the flat method has survived from 1st ed through 4th, 'tradition' was just going to keep it the same. But when you see a character jump on purpose over 100' off a cliff and literally just pop to his feet and keep chasing the bad guys with over half his HP left, you are motivated to change something :)
Not that I disagree in general with what you said, but I'm curious about whether you do things differently for special cases. Yeah, it's ridiculous that even if he forgot to prepare Feather Fall, a scrawny high-level wizard can be mostly fine after falling a huge height, but certain characters are a little different. For instance, the Monk has a Slow Fall ability, and when raging, a Barbarian (who is already super tough) becomes even tougher, a character with wings may be able to reduce their fall or stop it, given enough time, etc.
I'm mostly curious because you stated that you often use a ruling that a fall of 100+ feet auto-kills a character, so what are the situations that make that ruling often for you, instead of always?
Not that I disagree in general with what you said, but I'm curious about whether you do things differently for special cases. Yeah, it's ridiculous that even if he forgot to prepare Feather Fall, a scrawny high-level wizard can be mostly fine after falling a huge height, but certain characters are a little different. For instance, the Monk has a Slow Fall ability, and when raging, a Barbarian (who is already super tough) becomes even tougher, a character with wings may be able to reduce their fall or stop it, given enough time, etc.
I'm mostly curious because you stated that you often use a ruling that a fall of 100+ feet auto-kills a character, so what are the situations that make that ruling often for you, instead of always?
Gotcha, I really meant that I have played around with what point the auto-kill kicks in, and usually that point is 100'. I've tried higher than that a few times, but no one lives from much higher, not even monsters. It's conceivable that a wingless demon could fall 100' and live, but for example 200' both pushes real physics and at that point requires rolling fewer dice and multiplying, because you're talking hundreds of dice. So while 120, 130, etc might still be realistic if 100 is realistic, cutting it off at 100 is a nice round number :) That's what I meant by 'mostly'--what number I mostly use in a campaign. If I set it for a campaign, it's set. I've just played with it because trying to make falling damage translate into dice isn't perfect.
That said, you're right that abilities will certainly come into effect. A 10th level monk can fall 50' and on average take 3 points of damage with these rules. That would allow the sort of cool martial art movie stuff of the monk jumping from 3rd story windows with no damage, but not from a 10 story building. Even from 80 feet, you're looking at an average of 48 points of damage to thank monk. Still survivable, but hurting. I'm good with that. Wings and damage resistance and such can help a lot too.
Hmm. A 100' auto-death rule is reasonable, and easy to remember. Nice.
I really, really like this falling damage modification. I'll probably add a caveat that exceptional creatures (wings, very light bodies, raging barbarians, PCs holding onto a tablecloth, etc.) turn the damage back to linear damage, but with that, I think I'll be adding this to my game.
Hmm. A 100' auto-death rule is reasonable, and easy to remember. Nice.
I really, really like this falling damage modification. I'll probably add a caveat that exceptional creatures (wings, very light bodies, raging barbarians, PCs holding onto a tablecloth, etc.) turn the damage back to linear damage, but with that, I think I'll be adding this to my game.
Having certain features turn it back to linear is a nice way to do it, I haven't used that before. I think I'll borrow that from you :) Back in 1st/2nd, monks and ninjas and such could fall certain distances with the caveat that they had to be within reach of a wall. So something like wings, even small ones that might not allow flying, might allow for gliding/slowing.
In the end it's not a huge of a change as it might seem. The damage difference is really big, but opportunities for falling from over 30' or so tend to fairly limited in most campaigns. And the sort of precautions you need to take are ones that players can easily think of, because they're precautions the players themselves would be taking. Tying safety lines, for example.
And if someone is really desperate, from over 100' you could even roll percentile and let them survive with a miracle with a 00. There have been stories of skydivers surviving when their chutes don't open, after all. :)
The gods being more present is also what my world setting is all about. I never understood why deities do not just come to the realms and do stuffs with their powers. If their powers manifest through clerics and others then why arent just they coming here and invade to make their power grow.
In my world, i do like matt mercer except its not a divine gate. But ratter lesser deities that used to be high level heroes. I call them immortals and their goal is to stop deities from coming to claim our world.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
No Natural 1 or 20 rule. You roll what you roll, do the math, see if you succeed or fail. Some things you just can't do, some you just can't mess up.
Bringing back Take 10 and Take 20. Just makes sense.
Not using the 'Multiclassing Ability Score Prerequisite' rule.
Not using XP. PCs level up based on story/time/pacing considerations. 3rd level will probably come quick, since that's the level most people pick their subclass.
Alignment does not exist, is not a thing, forget it.
Regarding Ability Checks, I don't care for the Automatic failure/Automatic success, but I do think rolling a Natural 1 or 20 should have consequences. If you roll a natural 1, you use half of your skill bonus (negative numbers don't get halved). If you roll a natural 20, you double your skill bonus. So if your thief with a Stealth bonus of +6 rolls a natural 1, he can only add +3 for a total of 4 which is still a failure in most cases, while your thief with a +14 stealth can only add +7 which will give them an 8 which may or may not fail depending on how difficult it was. With a natural 20, the first adds +12 making it a 32 which will succeed in most cases, while the latter will add +28 which totals 48.
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.
Someone on twitter suggested a house rule that I really like. Remove Curse doesn't remove the curse itself. Instead, it provides the caster with the instructions for removing the curse. Simple curses have simple requirements. More elaborate curses can become entire adventures.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
TexasDevin, as per the RAW, remove curse do not remove a curse from an object, it only disattune the user from any cursed items freeing the creature from the curse.
but as a side note, many curse cannot be removed by remove curse as it is considered too low a level for certain curses. the said curses have the special text in them that says only greater restoration or wish can remove the curse.
my own homebrew says... depending on the level of the curse, there are 4 levels of cursing...
Basic Curse, cured by remove curse and some basic spiritualism rituals (system i added to my game)
Advanced Curse, cured only by greater restoration and advanced spiritualism rituals.
Major Curse, cured by greater restoration and or some special super hard to find rituals of spiritualism.
Deity's Curse, cured only by the deitys of the world or the spell Wish.
i preffered to keep the faster spell ways instead because not all players likes curses and not all players want to play with it. so its easier for them to grasp the concept of going to a cleric to get the curse removed. while the more curse inclined players love the idea of rituals that may or may not fail. so both side of the coin are helped in their ways and the players have a choice to make, which is another good side of this.
but yeah thats also a good ruling for homebrew, as curses usually means some kind of possession is in effect and thus it should be hard to remove. not just a spell level 2.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Respectfully, please reserve your corrections for when I say something incorrect.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Our Campaign is set in a mix between Spelljammer, Warhammer 40k, Eve Online and Steam/diesel punk with Magics, so the houserules are...numerous.
-We uses some classes and spells from Kobold Presses ( we have a Clockwork Wizard and a Prescient knight Figther for example)
-We houseruled that the Warlock Invocation; Thirsting Blade allows to use melee spells attacks in place of normal attacks, meaning that an Hexblade or Pact of the Blade Warlock can use greenflame blade or booming blade twice with the attack action, or mix between them or doing One of them and a normal attack.
-Changed the meh Accursed Specter Warlock class feature for the Soul Syphon class feature from the Blood hunter profane soul subclass, modified it so that it works with attacks and spells, on creatures of a CR equal or higher then the character's level, it fixed the issue with Warlocks ridiculously small Spellslots numbers.
-Cause of the setting(Fantasy ScyFy) Firearms and other more modern equipements is widely available, and all armors types are also made to be Pressurized and with life support systemes for sorties into the Astral plane/space/harmfull environements.
-We Use a modified( or not, i'm not really sure) version of Dark Matter ships stats and combat rules.
-SInce the setting is set in a world where ALL the planes Imploded after a Plane wide catastrophe, everything is mixed up, and magic is used on a daily basis and is widespread, so there's no Class restrictions on spells.
-There's body augmentations, chirurgical interventions/modifications and clockwork prosthetics.
-SPACE HULKS ( giant floating Dungeons/heap of ships carcasses that got stuck together with asteroids and small planetoids, with various treasures/dangers inside), they can appear randomly out of the Nether into the Material Plane, and they stay a certain time before translating back into the Astral Plane and might reappear some place else...
-lots of changes regarding races, Gnomes becames violent cannibalistic raiders, Dwarves got invovled in so many conflicts as defenders that their numbers are few, and they are rarely seen outside their ancestral homes, Orcs became more intelligent and are good at tech and science, Humans as they where basically became Genasi, some races completly dissapeared, and some have isolated themselfs from the rest of the world.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
1st level characters start with there max hit die plus there constitution score not there ability score modifier. But they do not get there modifier as they increase levels until level 6...this may seem extreme but I got tired killing parties with like 3 goblins at first level.
Modification to “Thrown” weapon abilities: If the Weapon has the Thrown and Light characteristics you may draw and throw (attack) with it as many times as you have attacks (ie. multi-attacks).
No variant humans, but humans get a free skill. You may choose a skill that you already have taken and get expertise in it.
Respectfully texasdevin, cursed magic item stays cursed even when remove curse is applied. Read the cursed item section in the magic item section of the DMG.
Remove curse only remove the curse on the player not the item.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
I think he was referring to the removal of the curse from the person instead of the item.
Web DM recently put a call out on Twitter for people's favorite House Rules. Most of them centered on bringing food and snacks if the DM hosts, which I think is an excellent rule and one that I am happy to say all my players did automatically (although I provide beer, so I think it all works out for all parties)
A few others that caught my attention in a positive way were:
Deck of cards for inspiration.
Hand out a card to award it, face down.
When player wants to use inspiration, they flip over the card and get a bonus to d20 roll corresponding to card.
Numbered = their value
Face = +10
Ace = Crit
I like this one because it's very low maintenance for everyone. I would treat an ace as +10 or maybe +11, but I don't like the free crit as it is far less relevant to non-combat uses.
Dice rolls off the table are automatic 1s
That one made me laugh. I thought it was just my table, but I guess every table has "that person."
For #5e we almost always implement
"Critical Hit = max damage on the original weapon die."
So with a d8 weapon, a natural twenty gets you 8+d8 instead of 2d8.
(Nothing worse than rolling two 1s for damage on a crit, BLECH!)
I see this one mentioned a few times. It's a good way to guarantee some "oomf" to your crits
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I play in one campaign, and run another, both with the same group. Both I and the other DM run in two separate worlds of our own makings. Excluding monsters and races, we mainly stick to just the PHB, DMG and XGtE for our rulesets.
When I DM, I try to keep the actual number of houserules to a minimum. That said, here's the bulk of them:
- Characters all have a new skill, Current Affairs, based on Intelligence. Anytime they are able to choose a proficiency in History or in Investigation, they may instead choose Current Affairs from among the options. It represents knowing about things that are happening in the world RIGHT NOW, either politically, economically, internationally, etc.
- Warlocks can choose any one damage-dealing Warlock cantrip that does not affect an area to be their Specialty Cantrip. The default is Eldritch Blast, but they can choose a different one instead. The Eldritch Invocations that specifically refer to "Eldritch Blast" instead are treated as referring to "your Specialty Cantrip." Eldritch Spear is treated as saying: "When you cast your Specialty Cantrip, its range is doubled; if the range was 5 feet or less, it becomes 15 feet instead. Does not apply to Booming Blade or Primal Savagery." This is to allow Warlocks to not ALL rely on Eldritch Blast.
- If players are conjuring creatures, they get to choose the creatures if they already have the creature's stats available, say with a PHB opened to the correct page, right when the spell is cast. Otherwise, I choose the creatures. This is to prompt players to be ready with their creature selection right when its their turn.
- Player Inspiration can roll over from session to session, and everyone starts the session with Inspiration if they don't already have it. This is because I'm still not great at awarding Inspiration.
- Players can also generate Inspiration themselves from an added ritual in the Ceremony spell.
- Players can use Inspiration after knowing whether a roll succeeds or fails.
- There are also a few other new rituals added to the Ceremony spell for flavor and roleplay purposes (none are any stronger than the ones provided in RAW.)
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Falling Damage: 1d6/10 feet cumulative. 10'=1d6, 20'=3d6 (1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the second 10'), 30'=6d6, 40'=10d6, etc.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Below are the House Rules for my current 5e campaign. :D I add as things come up, but for the most part Rule 1-5 existed at the start.
Rule 1: Some Feats will be locked until you reach a certain level. Please ask the GM before picking a feat.
Rule 2: No Backup Characters UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD/RETIRED.
Rule 2.A, Paragraph 3 : Backup characters cannot be human (unless your original character was not human).
Rule 3: No Lucky Feat. Tavern Brawler is restricted to Level 4 or higher.
Rule 4: Grappling weapons exist. Contested Grapple Checks and Choke Rolls are a thing.
Rule 5: Sorcerer (Careful Spell Metamagic) - when you cast a spell that could damage (or save throw) friendly characters, you can spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of creatures up to your charisma modifier who will be immune to the spell.
Rule 6: Dragonmark Feats: These can be gained at level 8, but must be discussed with the DM.
Rule 7: Phantasmal Killer (spell): The target of this spell is not able to do a saving throw until after the initial damage and frightened effect is applied for one turn.
Rule 8: Component costs are a thing, potentially, at 3rd level spells and higher.
That actually seems a bit more realistic. At what height do you have the damage cap out? (I presume you have a lower cap, otherwise a 200' fall would do a total of 210d6 damage.)
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Have played around with the damage cap in the past. TBH it doesn't really matter much, because a more realistic damage cap still leaves everyone dead :) A typical person will reach terminal velocity while falling in around 1500 feet. And that would be 11,325d6, lol. So often the ruling I have used is that if you fall from more than 100', you're just auto dead. That's 55d6. 110' would be 66d6, average of 200 points of damage.
This was the way that Gygax always ran falling damage in OD&D--it was a mistaken interpretation of his notes to set it at 1d6/10' flat, and they've just always left it that way for reasons I cannot understand. During 5e playtesting I was asking for a change to the cumulative method, but the flat method has survived from 1st ed through 4th, 'tradition' was just going to keep it the same. But when you see a character jump on purpose over 100' off a cliff and literally just pop to his feet and keep chasing the bad guys with over half his HP left, you are motivated to change something :)
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Not that I disagree in general with what you said, but I'm curious about whether you do things differently for special cases. Yeah, it's ridiculous that even if he forgot to prepare Feather Fall, a scrawny high-level wizard can be mostly fine after falling a huge height, but certain characters are a little different. For instance, the Monk has a Slow Fall ability, and when raging, a Barbarian (who is already super tough) becomes even tougher, a character with wings may be able to reduce their fall or stop it, given enough time, etc.
I'm mostly curious because you stated that you often use a ruling that a fall of 100+ feet auto-kills a character, so what are the situations that make that ruling often for you, instead of always?
And that's all I have to say about that.
Gotcha, I really meant that I have played around with what point the auto-kill kicks in, and usually that point is 100'. I've tried higher than that a few times, but no one lives from much higher, not even monsters. It's conceivable that a wingless demon could fall 100' and live, but for example 200' both pushes real physics and at that point requires rolling fewer dice and multiplying, because you're talking hundreds of dice. So while 120, 130, etc might still be realistic if 100 is realistic, cutting it off at 100 is a nice round number :) That's what I meant by 'mostly'--what number I mostly use in a campaign. If I set it for a campaign, it's set. I've just played with it because trying to make falling damage translate into dice isn't perfect.
That said, you're right that abilities will certainly come into effect. A 10th level monk can fall 50' and on average take 3 points of damage with these rules. That would allow the sort of cool martial art movie stuff of the monk jumping from 3rd story windows with no damage, but not from a 10 story building. Even from 80 feet, you're looking at an average of 48 points of damage to thank monk. Still survivable, but hurting. I'm good with that. Wings and damage resistance and such can help a lot too.
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Hmm. A 100' auto-death rule is reasonable, and easy to remember. Nice.
I really, really like this falling damage modification. I'll probably add a caveat that exceptional creatures (wings, very light bodies, raging barbarians, PCs holding onto a tablecloth, etc.) turn the damage back to linear damage, but with that, I think I'll be adding this to my game.
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Having certain features turn it back to linear is a nice way to do it, I haven't used that before. I think I'll borrow that from you :) Back in 1st/2nd, monks and ninjas and such could fall certain distances with the caveat that they had to be within reach of a wall. So something like wings, even small ones that might not allow flying, might allow for gliding/slowing.
In the end it's not a huge of a change as it might seem. The damage difference is really big, but opportunities for falling from over 30' or so tend to fairly limited in most campaigns. And the sort of precautions you need to take are ones that players can easily think of, because they're precautions the players themselves would be taking. Tying safety lines, for example.
And if someone is really desperate, from over 100' you could even roll percentile and let them survive with a miracle with a 00. There have been stories of skydivers surviving when their chutes don't open, after all. :)
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