I use a bunch of Home rules that are documented in my campaigns' wiki. I also use a mix of existing variant rules (for example knowledge and tools can use the proficiency dice roll variant rule) as well as the excellent variant encumbrance.
Among the home rule I use, you have to have proficiency in that skill to provide help on an action, specialized checks (made with disadvantage if not proficient), addition of helmets, effect of snake-eyes critical, some more tactical options, like high ground, and size based perception based modifiers (i.e. it is harder to perceive a small or tiny creature if you are a medium one)...
Whenever damage is halved I round down against the badguys but round up against the PCs. It’s a small thing, but it does make the PCs seem more badass.
i always round up instead of down on damage. there is no way an attack can do 0 damage. its always a minimum of 1.
as for disarming... well... you just lost your action to disarm someone... thats why disarming sucks ! sure disarming the weapon is kinda bullshit... except when you consider that if i disarm him and then take my leave and take an AoO. he now has to punch me for 1+str instead of 2d6+str. and if i disarm his shield... he now has -2 AC for the turn until he actually gets the shield back. all in all, i think disarming might feel like nothing, but its definitely more then you let it seem. of course bad behavior from players, like, i disarm the badguy but it is his turn right after me. thats not bad mecanics, thats bad from a startegy stand point from your players.
the same way any attacks can be changed into a grapple... so imagine this scenario... Player A is in Melee with Monster B. Monster B moves and provoke an opportunity attack. Player A uses it, but instead of attacking, changes it into a grapple... both rolls, and monster B is grappled, his speed becomes 0. he now is stuck in place being grappled. even worse, he now has to lose an action to be able to move.
look at the scenario above, tell me how often your players actually think like this ? thats your problem right there, the mecanics of the game allows for far more then what their description says, yet people somehow preffer to think 1 dimensionnal about it and thats it. sorry but the mecanics of the game aren't just 1 pony tricks, many abilities can be used to much greater effects then they seem to be.
so to say "disarming leads to the great, he has to take a free action to get it back" is pretty darn false, cause now he has no swords or weapons for the rest of the turn and that includes he can't use it if there is an opportunity attack. its worse against shields. that shield wielder is now -2 AC for the whole turn, until he gets back the shield.
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)
Additional Hit Dice based on race/subrace at level one.
Dwarves and Half-Orcs would get 1d10, Elves and humans 1d8, Gnomes and Halflings 1d6, so on.
What do you think?
For what purpose?
Just to make level one characters a bit better at surviving. Now they can take 2-3 hits before dropping to 0 hit points, and it gives a nice boost at higher levels. It just allows your race to affect your survivability a lot more, and there is a similar system in Pathfinder 2.0, and I just think it makes a lot of sense.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Additional Hit Dice based on race/subrace at level one.
Dwarves and Half-Orcs would get 1d10, Elves and humans 1d8, Gnomes and Halflings 1d6, so on.
What do you think?
For what purpose?
Just to make level one characters a bit better at surviving. Now they can take 2-3 hits before dropping to 0 hit points, and it gives a nice boost at higher levels. It just allows your race to affect your survivability a lot more, and there is a similar system in Pathfinder 2.0, and I just think it makes a lot of sense.
I can understand the desire to boost the level 1 hit points a bit because 1st level characters are so squishy. But I don't know that I would tie it to race. Either a flat amount for everyone would make more sense or doing it based on class.
What we've done is adopted a negative hitpoint model. All players have a negative hitpoint total equal to their Constitution score. Once they go past zero they make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to 10 plus however negative their hitpoints are. Are a failure they go unconscious. On a success they remain conscious. They have to continue making the Constitution save at the end of their turn. They are also bleeding out 1 hit point per round. Once they exceed their Constitution score in negative hitpoints they have to make a death save. A single failure at that point results in death. A success means they live another round. And a natural 20 means they are stable at their max negative hitpoints.
Elder, your system seems brutal. Some players are going to only have +1/+2 to constitution - it sounds like those characters outright die if they take a hit that goes 3 points of damage past zero and they fail the save? Seems unlikely that those characters will ever even get to be just 'unconscious' as the margins there are so slim. The chances of not failing a single death save and the nerf to nat 20 death saves, this is quite the meat grinder!
Am I understanding correctly? I know my players fear going unconscious enough as it is since I ramped up my encounters and started using the injury table rules, but this savagery might be fun for a high-stakes one-shot.
Edit// Damn missed the word 'score'. So used to assuming scores are redundant, that makes a lot more sense.
my only problem with negative hit points, is that in the end you only add more hit points to your players. while i preffered the pathfinder way of saying constitution score as negative compared to 3e minus 10. in the end you are only giving your players more hit points. and from a playing perspective, players tends t die too often because many of them have no time to go unconscious. i prefer the the better death saves. but sure they have place for adjustments. as an exemple i preffer to leave the coup the grace. sorry for that french saying, but its truth... even if you have no death saves in tow... if the enemy is in melee with you, and he finishes you off, you are gone.
the only problem with death saves and the negative score, is that players seems to think they have "time" before getting to you. that's metagaming to say the least. there is also the problem of most DMs, me included in some aspect. that just think that if an enemy is down, then they are out of commission and thus we should focused on someone else at all cost. thats a ******** logic. it might works for creatures like goblins who fear the big threats more then the smaller ones... but for oozes who do not care if you are alive or not. they shouldn't change their target just because of being down. they have no intelligence to know what being down means, they just eat it all.
there are other times where the DM just gives out the players too much chances at living. not enough at dieing. exemple... a DM sees a player go down, he changes his target to the next melee fighter, then he sees a cleric go and heal the downed player. next turn he does the same, down the player and change target again. the cleric does the same deal. that's ludicrous, you are letting a player live for what reason ? the moment that enemy saw the cleric, he knew he'd lose if he let the players be unconscious. for me its simple... that monster will finish off the players once they are down.
in reality we don't know the conditions of people we are trying to save. in d&d it should be the same. in reality we don't have magical healing who mysteriously brings back people from the death door. so your plays should consider those. if the enemy is intelligent enough, and yes a goblin is as intelligent as any humans. they should know that not going for the cleric once he has healed people will make them lose the fight. they should know that if the cleric heals a downed creature, that downed creature will be back into the fight and kill you.
sometimes you should stop trying to save your players and should start saying, what would the enemy do in that situation... yeah he'd finish them off !
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)
Swift sign, yeah their negative hitpoint value is based on their Constitution score not the Constitution bonus. So most people will have around 10-12 negative hit points. And your martial characters will tend to have more.
DnDpaladin, the idea is that they have some capacity for physical damage. That is reflected as their negative hit points which is based on their Constitution.
The regular hitpoints are a measure of luck, skill and stamina.
Once they take enough damage to go negative they may or may not go unconscious depending on their saving throw. But they are bleeding out and heading towards death so long as they are negative.
If they make their saving throw then they have options. They can fight on and hope to take out the enemy before they go down. Or they can try to retreat before going down from the blood loss. Because they will have to make the saving throw again at the end of their next round.
So it gives them a buffer of extra hitpoints that allows them to survive and still take action (if they make their saving throw). But that buffer if negative hit points isn't reliable like if we just gave everyone an extra 6-10 hit points. Its conditioned on making those saving throws.
So I use it as a means to buff up the characters a bit with an extra 10-20 "hitpoints" so they aren't so squishy but they are conditional hit points and they could drop unconscious at any point once they are negative. It tends to add additional drama while at the same time making low level characters less prone to death.
But one other item to help reduce the meta gaming of other players coming to stop them from bleeding put. When they make their Constitution save at the end of their turn each round. The bleeding damage they take is dependent on that save. If they succeed the initial Con save they remain conscious and lose 1 hit point from bleeding. Any failures on those Con saves results in going unconscious and losing 2 hit point from bleeding.
So each round the player will lose 1 or 2 hitpoints depending on their saves. So the other players can just do the math and figure that harold has 10 rounds before he dies if he is a -2 and has a Constitution of 12. Because it might only be 5 rounds if he fails all his saves.
I tend to throw lots of deadly encounters at my players with a ticking clock so short rests aren’t always convenient for them. So I am implementing the following house rules to give Warlocks a bit of a rebalance:
+1 Cantrip starting at 1st level.
1 additional Spell Slot that only refreshes on a long rest starting at 1st level. Another additional spell slot that refreshes on a long rest starting at 9th level.
A second 6th level Mystic Arcanum spell starting at 18th level. They could either cast one of them twice, or each of them once.
I tend to throw lots of deadly encounters at my players with a ticking clock so short rests aren’t always convenient for them. So I am implementing the following house rules to give Warlocks a bit of a rebalance:
That's an... interesting attempt to compensate a warlock for having no short rests. Have you actually used these houserules in a campaign yet?
Not as yet. I developed these ideas because the player with the Warlock was frustrated enough to switch characters a while ago.
By giving them something for a long rest, I am hoping it will also help prevent the urges to coffeelock and/or the feeling that they need to multiclass.
Please bear in mind that the following is just my opinion.
If I may suggest... I think you may find these rules don't go nearly far enough.
Consider that the problem isn't that your warlock gets nothing for a long rest. He gets everything for a long rest that everyone else does. The problem is, he needs his spell slots replenished more quickly, or else he runs out of magic rather quickly. The extra cantrip addresses that somewhat. The other two bonuses really don't.
Honestly, if he never gets short rests, you might want to just give him the same spell slots that every other full caster gets, and drop the "recharge on a short rest" feature entirely, because he's effectively in the same boat as them. That should wind up working better (and be easier to keep track of) than adding a single extra spell on a few specific levels.
They have all the opportunities in the world for a short rest, it’s just that the “bad guys” might get away, or the villain’s ritual might be concluded if the party stops for a 60 minute lunch break. This way the Warlock could stick it out a bit instead of asking for 3-5 short rests per day. If they only get 1-2, they can still function. Honestly this doesn’t seem any more difficult to track than Chanel Divinity.
I personally like features that require the player to make a tactical choice on the right time to use them. An extra spell slot per day could be huge if used at the right time. Does that 1st-level Warlock actually cast two spells during the same encounter (😳🤯), or do they rely on their Cantrips and save it in case they don’t get to take a mid-morning/afternoon nap that day? Decisions, decisions.... Wizards get Arcane Recovery, this is kind of the inverse.
One of the reasons that Warlocks have fewer spell slots is because they have multiple invocations which give them extra spells on top of their 2 spell slots. And many of those invocations are essentially at will spells.
In addition to that eldritch blast is one of the most powerful if not the most powerful cantrips. So much so that it is essentially a class feature of the Warlock. It does the most damage of any cantrip and it's of a damage type that is rarely if ever resisted.
Giving Warlocks the same spell slots as other casters would make them more powerful than the other casters.
Instead of reworking the class why not give him a magic item that has a number of charges that allows limited casting of the catnap spell from Xanathars?
One of the reasons that Warlocks have fewer spell slots is because they have multiple invocations which give them extra spells on top of their 2 spell slots. And many of those invocations are essentially at will spells.
In addition to that eldritch blast is one of the most powerful if not the most powerful cantrips. So much so that it is essentially a class feature of the Warlock. It does the most damage of any cantrip and it's of a damage type that is rarely if ever resisted.
Giving Warlocks the same spell slots as other casters would make them more powerful than the other casters.
Instead of reworking the class why not give him a magic item that has a number of charges that allows limited casting of the catnap spell from Xanathars?
Many of the Invocations actually require a spell slot, and people end up not taking them as often because what don’t Warlocks have enough of....? Essentially I am giving them a limited number of “charges” that allows them to cast any spell, or fuel their slot-gobbling invocations. One “charge”/LR @ 1st, and a second “charge” at 9th.
Many of the Invocations actually require a spell slot, and people end up not taking them as often because what don’t Warlocks have enough of....? Essentially I am giving them a limited number of “charges” that allows them to cast any spell, or fuel their slot-gobbling invocations. One “charge”/LR @ 1st, and a second “charge” at 9th.
This is why I made the homebrew rule that any invocation that lets the Warlock cast a spell 1/LR doesn't use a spell slot. It lets them have their already-limited spell that they invested in without also penalizing their limited resource pool for their known spells.
My only Warlock player hasn't picked an invocation that grants a spell like that, at least not yet, so I haven't seen it in action yet, but honestly? I doubt it will be that huge of an impact overall. It always struck me as stupidly restrictive to require the spell slot AND limit it to once per LR.
been using that as well for about a year now... actually fixes the warlock spellslot problem. basically it emulates innate spellcasting which none of the class has and it makes the warlock much better as a spell caster.
must say, its not breaking anything. really. the warlock still is far from any other casters. heck even D&D themselves have made the new invocations not requiring the spell slots. its just they can't fix the player handbook. as they don't want people to have "wrong" rulings. honestly... everyone should just do that little fix and let them cast the spell 1/ long rest without spell slots. i mean its already picking off an invocation, so it nots like its free. it also compensate for the weaker Mystical Arcanum which are literally just bad in themselves compared to everything else. so if they can get more higher level spell slots by using invocations, then im fine with it.
just saying, heres the problem with warlocks at higher levels... - too long to get additionnal spell slots. 2 until level 11 is a no no. - Mystic Arcanum are bullshit... 1 level slot that can only cast a very specific chosen spell of the specified level. - most of the invocations actually requires you to cast "WITH" your warlock spell slots, which you have only 2 of. - warlocks have too many spells chosen while having next to no spell slot to cast them. - many invocations are traps that actually makes the warlock clunky.
fixes that the warlock should be using to make him on par with other classes. - the warlock already has the innate spell casting feature that only monsters have had up to this point. but his ability is all about the first and last innate spellcasting ability which should really be more then that. heres the innate spellcasting ability functionnality... At-Will: spell1 spell 2 spell3 - this is already correctly done by invocations that gives at-will spell casting. 3/Long Rest: spell1 spell2 spell3 - none of the invocations gives you any of this... 1/Long Rest: spell1, spell2, spell3 - Only a very specific few gives you this. the others requires spell slot, which innate spellcasting doesn't really use.
the simple fix, is to remove the need for spell slot on trap spell invocations. which enables the user to have more spells in his arsenals and have a way to cat them, which fixes the warlock spell slot problem. while he has only 2 spell slots at lower level, he can still cast more spells even if he needs them to be very specific spells.
- next problem is the invocations that actually makes you weaker... like the levitate spell. unless you use it on the enemy at all times, there is no way this will help you by level 11. by level 11 you already can cast Fly to as many as 3 people at once to fly for 1 hours. Levitate is a spell level 2 and only pushes you upward by 20 feet, and if you wanna go in any other directions, you "NEED" to help yourself with something to get there. so basically, its useless and basically just gotten yourself out of an invocation for a spell that you are never really gonna use unless its on an enemy that you want to be stuck there. otherwise its a very specific situationnal spell. and this invocation is not the only one that renders you weaker... at that point... i'd give you the fly spell instead. thinking that its already only castable on yourself or one another person. but not both. because its casted at its original level all the time. instead of giving it at-will i'd give it a 1/long rest. thats already a much better level 11 invocation. if anything... you could also just lower down the invocation required level to 5. that would also make the invocation more worth it.
Mystical Arcanum would be great if they had the versatility of other spell casters... so what i would do, is allow you to have 1 spell slot as said by the feature, but it can cast any of your spells. you already gain them back every long rest, so that is already a drawback compared to your other short rest spell slots. and that would fix your problem of the high level very specific spell with avery specific spell slot.
In addition to that eldritch blast is one of the most powerful if not the most powerful cantrips. So much so that it is essentially a class feature of the Warlock. It does the most damage of any cantrip and it's of a damage type that is rarely if ever resisted.
You missed the mark at that point, the fact it is strong as nothign to do with how much damage it deals or what type of fdamage it deals. it has everything to do with the fact that it is not like other cantrips, that is if you miss, you missed point final. in this case it works by attacks. by attacks means that if the first misses, the other 3 still have chances of hitting. each additionnal rolls gives you chances at critting. more rolls the better. now if it stopped there, i'd argue that even that is not abusive... but alas its not stopping there... since they are attack rolls for each blast... it means hex pops up on each and every one of them. that is already abusive... but it doesn't stop there... there is an invocation who adds your charisma to the damage. mix all that up and you got a pretty messed up cantrip ! BUT !!! it doesn't stop there. there is a invocation that reduce the opponent speed, no save required. each attacks might reduce the speed by 10 feet. 4 attacks, means minus 40 to your opponents speed. now there is also an invocation that pushes them backward 10 feet. without any saves whatsoever... catch the drift.... now lets add all this up and compare to desintegrate !!!
thats... 4d12(blast)+4d6(hex)+20(charisma)+40 speed reduction+40 feet push back ! lets calculate the average here... 4d12 = 6.5 x 4 = 26 4d6 = 3.5 x 4 = 14 add the charisma bonuses... thats a grand total of 26+14+20 = 60 damage average per round !!! thats with an opponent who becomes a pinball machine by just being pinged around the battlefield, unable to move unless they are a monk. oh right, there is also an invocation that gives eldritch blast twice the range. thats 240 feet for you.
lets see disintegrate now... just for comparision... 10d6+40 damage... average to... 10d6 = 3.5 x 10 = 35 grand total of 35 + 40 = 75 average damage ! thats if he doesn't save. if he saves, thats halved... so its 35 divided by 2... and thats one single roll, no chances of critting... while all 4 of your eldritch blast have a chance at critting all by themselves...
see where the cantrip is heavy... its not the cantrip, its not on par... its the fact that it is on par with the fighter melee weapon. same number of attacks, same damage. but add the invocations and you have a disintegrate at will !!!
thats where the cantrip is considered strong for. the fact its a d12 has no matter into the play. the fact it is force, already helps sure, but again its a very small detail compared to what the cantrip can become with everything else mixed in.
did i mention that my wizard friend has create a gatling gun in my game, just with spells... and i'm not talking magic missile gatling gun... i'm talking Scorching Ray gattling gun ! let me introduce you to his turn... i cast scorching ray, as a bonus action i put my hex on him. (human variant, he has magic initiate feat) thats basically... 6d6(3 rays)+3d6(hex pops 3 times because 3 attacks) and thats basically without critting which just doubles any dice... lets say 1 of them crits... it becomes... 8d6(2 ray + 1 ray crit)+4d6(2 regular hex + 1 hex crit) just saying, how damaging do you think that is ? now everytimes he cast it at higher levels, it gains another attack. he basically changed his staff into an assault riffle with either burst mode or full auto.
oh and did i say that once he got to level 4, he added elemental adept which makes people unable to resist his fire damage ? so yeah he can shoot resistant creatures with it and it will hurt them. as well as reroll every 1 and 2 on his dice, making the thing even deadlier... yeah, the others all wonder why they are using revolvers instead of being wizards in my far west exploration game.
yeah there are pretty busted things in 5e... but back to warlock, yeah it needs to be remade at higher levels...
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)
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I use a bunch of Home rules that are documented in my campaigns' wiki. I also use a mix of existing variant rules (for example knowledge and tools can use the proficiency dice roll variant rule) as well as the excellent variant encumbrance.
Among the home rule I use, you have to have proficiency in that skill to provide help on an action, specialized checks (made with disadvantage if not proficient), addition of helmets, effect of snake-eyes critical, some more tactical options, like high ground, and size based perception based modifiers (i.e. it is harder to perceive a small or tiny creature if you are a medium one)...
https://homerules.obsidianportal.com/
https://startplaying.games/game-master/dmgrisix
Whenever damage is halved I round down against the badguys but round up against the PCs. It’s a small thing, but it does make the PCs seem more badass.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
i always round up instead of down on damage.
there is no way an attack can do 0 damage. its always a minimum of 1.
as for disarming... well... you just lost your action to disarm someone... thats why disarming sucks !
sure disarming the weapon is kinda bullshit... except when you consider that if i disarm him and then take my leave and take an AoO. he now has to punch me for 1+str instead of 2d6+str. and if i disarm his shield... he now has -2 AC for the turn until he actually gets the shield back. all in all, i think disarming might feel like nothing, but its definitely more then you let it seem. of course bad behavior from players, like, i disarm the badguy but it is his turn right after me. thats not bad mecanics, thats bad from a startegy stand point from your players.
the same way any attacks can be changed into a grapple...
so imagine this scenario... Player A is in Melee with Monster B.
Monster B moves and provoke an opportunity attack. Player A uses it, but instead of attacking, changes it into a grapple...
both rolls, and monster B is grappled, his speed becomes 0. he now is stuck in place being grappled. even worse, he now has to lose an action to be able to move.
look at the scenario above, tell me how often your players actually think like this ?
thats your problem right there, the mecanics of the game allows for far more then what their description says, yet people somehow preffer to think 1 dimensionnal about it and thats it.
sorry but the mecanics of the game aren't just 1 pony tricks, many abilities can be used to much greater effects then they seem to be.
so to say "disarming leads to the great, he has to take a free action to get it back" is pretty darn false, cause now he has no swords or weapons for the rest of the turn and that includes he can't use it if there is an opportunity attack. its worse against shields. that shield wielder is now -2 AC for the whole turn, until he gets back the shield.
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)
Just to make level one characters a bit better at surviving. Now they can take 2-3 hits before dropping to 0 hit points, and it gives a nice boost at higher levels. It just allows your race to affect your survivability a lot more, and there is a similar system in Pathfinder 2.0, and I just think it makes a lot of sense.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I can understand the desire to boost the level 1 hit points a bit because 1st level characters are so squishy. But I don't know that I would tie it to race. Either a flat amount for everyone would make more sense or doing it based on class.
What we've done is adopted a negative hitpoint model. All players have a negative hitpoint total equal to their Constitution score. Once they go past zero they make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to 10 plus however negative their hitpoints are. Are a failure they go unconscious. On a success they remain conscious. They have to continue making the Constitution save at the end of their turn. They are also bleeding out 1 hit point per round. Once they exceed their Constitution score in negative hitpoints they have to make a death save. A single failure at that point results in death. A success means they live another round. And a natural 20 means they are stable at their max negative hitpoints.
Elder, your system seems brutal. Some players are going to only have +1/+2 to constitution - it sounds like those characters outright die if they take a hit that goes 3 points of damage past zero and they fail the save? Seems unlikely that those characters will ever even get to be just 'unconscious' as the margins there are so slim. The chances of not failing a single death save and the nerf to nat 20 death saves, this is quite the meat grinder!
Am I understanding correctly? I know my players fear going unconscious enough as it is since I ramped up my encounters and started using the injury table rules, but this savagery might be fun for a high-stakes one-shot.
Edit// Damn missed the word 'score'. So used to assuming scores are redundant, that makes a lot more sense.
my only problem with negative hit points, is that in the end you only add more hit points to your players. while i preffered the pathfinder way of saying constitution score as negative compared to 3e minus 10. in the end you are only giving your players more hit points. and from a playing perspective, players tends t die too often because many of them have no time to go unconscious. i prefer the the better death saves. but sure they have place for adjustments. as an exemple i preffer to leave the coup the grace. sorry for that french saying, but its truth... even if you have no death saves in tow... if the enemy is in melee with you, and he finishes you off, you are gone.
the only problem with death saves and the negative score, is that players seems to think they have "time" before getting to you.
that's metagaming to say the least. there is also the problem of most DMs, me included in some aspect. that just think that if an enemy is down, then they are out of commission and thus we should focused on someone else at all cost. thats a ******** logic. it might works for creatures like goblins who fear the big threats more then the smaller ones... but for oozes who do not care if you are alive or not. they shouldn't change their target just because of being down. they have no intelligence to know what being down means, they just eat it all.
there are other times where the DM just gives out the players too much chances at living. not enough at dieing.
exemple... a DM sees a player go down, he changes his target to the next melee fighter, then he sees a cleric go and heal the downed player. next turn he does the same, down the player and change target again. the cleric does the same deal. that's ludicrous, you are letting a player live for what reason ? the moment that enemy saw the cleric, he knew he'd lose if he let the players be unconscious. for me its simple... that monster will finish off the players once they are down.
in reality we don't know the conditions of people we are trying to save. in d&d it should be the same.
in reality we don't have magical healing who mysteriously brings back people from the death door.
so your plays should consider those. if the enemy is intelligent enough, and yes a goblin is as intelligent as any humans.
they should know that not going for the cleric once he has healed people will make them lose the fight.
they should know that if the cleric heals a downed creature, that downed creature will be back into the fight and kill you.
sometimes you should stop trying to save your players and should start saying, what would the enemy do in that situation... yeah he'd finish them off !
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)
Swift sign, yeah their negative hitpoint value is based on their Constitution score not the Constitution bonus. So most people will have around 10-12 negative hit points. And your martial characters will tend to have more.
DnDpaladin, the idea is that they have some capacity for physical damage. That is reflected as their negative hit points which is based on their Constitution.
The regular hitpoints are a measure of luck, skill and stamina.
Once they take enough damage to go negative they may or may not go unconscious depending on their saving throw. But they are bleeding out and heading towards death so long as they are negative.
If they make their saving throw then they have options. They can fight on and hope to take out the enemy before they go down. Or they can try to retreat before going down from the blood loss. Because they will have to make the saving throw again at the end of their next round.
So it gives them a buffer of extra hitpoints that allows them to survive and still take action (if they make their saving throw). But that buffer if negative hit points isn't reliable like if we just gave everyone an extra 6-10 hit points. Its conditioned on making those saving throws.
So I use it as a means to buff up the characters a bit with an extra 10-20 "hitpoints" so they aren't so squishy but they are conditional hit points and they could drop unconscious at any point once they are negative. It tends to add additional drama while at the same time making low level characters less prone to death.
But one other item to help reduce the meta gaming of other players coming to stop them from bleeding put. When they make their Constitution save at the end of their turn each round. The bleeding damage they take is dependent on that save. If they succeed the initial Con save they remain conscious and lose 1 hit point from bleeding. Any failures on those Con saves results in going unconscious and losing 2 hit point from bleeding.
So each round the player will lose 1 or 2 hitpoints depending on their saves. So the other players can just do the math and figure that harold has 10 rounds before he dies if he is a -2 and has a Constitution of 12. Because it might only be 5 rounds if he fails all his saves.
I tend to throw lots of deadly encounters at my players with a ticking clock so short rests aren’t always convenient for them. So I am implementing the following house rules to give Warlocks a bit of a rebalance:
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That's an... interesting attempt to compensate a warlock for having no short rests. Have you actually used these houserules in a campaign yet?
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
Not as yet. I developed these ideas because the player with the Warlock was frustrated enough to switch characters a while ago.
By giving them something for a long rest, I am hoping it will also help prevent the urges to coffeelock and/or the feeling that they need to multiclass.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Please bear in mind that the following is just my opinion.
If I may suggest... I think you may find these rules don't go nearly far enough.
Consider that the problem isn't that your warlock gets nothing for a long rest. He gets everything for a long rest that everyone else does. The problem is, he needs his spell slots replenished more quickly, or else he runs out of magic rather quickly. The extra cantrip addresses that somewhat. The other two bonuses really don't.
Honestly, if he never gets short rests, you might want to just give him the same spell slots that every other full caster gets, and drop the "recharge on a short rest" feature entirely, because he's effectively in the same boat as them. That should wind up working better (and be easier to keep track of) than adding a single extra spell on a few specific levels.
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
They have all the opportunities in the world for a short rest, it’s just that the “bad guys” might get away, or the villain’s ritual might be concluded if the party stops for a 60 minute lunch break. This way the Warlock could stick it out a bit instead of asking for 3-5 short rests per day. If they only get 1-2, they can still function. Honestly this doesn’t seem any more difficult to track than Chanel Divinity.
I personally like features that require the player to make a tactical choice on the right time to use them. An extra spell slot per day could be huge if used at the right time. Does that 1st-level Warlock actually cast two spells during the same encounter (😳🤯), or do they rely on their Cantrips and save it in case they don’t get to take a mid-morning/afternoon nap that day? Decisions, decisions.... Wizards get Arcane Recovery, this is kind of the inverse.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
One of the reasons that Warlocks have fewer spell slots is because they have multiple invocations which give them extra spells on top of their 2 spell slots. And many of those invocations are essentially at will spells.
In addition to that eldritch blast is one of the most powerful if not the most powerful cantrips. So much so that it is essentially a class feature of the Warlock. It does the most damage of any cantrip and it's of a damage type that is rarely if ever resisted.
Giving Warlocks the same spell slots as other casters would make them more powerful than the other casters.
Instead of reworking the class why not give him a magic item that has a number of charges that allows limited casting of the catnap spell from Xanathars?
Many of the Invocations actually require a spell slot, and people end up not taking them as often because what don’t Warlocks have enough of....? Essentially I am giving them a limited number of “charges” that allows them to cast any spell, or fuel their slot-gobbling invocations. One “charge”/LR @ 1st, and a second “charge” at 9th.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
This is why I made the homebrew rule that any invocation that lets the Warlock cast a spell 1/LR doesn't use a spell slot. It lets them have their already-limited spell that they invested in without also penalizing their limited resource pool for their known spells.
How has that been working out?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
My only Warlock player hasn't picked an invocation that grants a spell like that, at least not yet, so I haven't seen it in action yet, but honestly? I doubt it will be that huge of an impact overall. It always struck me as stupidly restrictive to require the spell slot AND limit it to once per LR.
been using that as well for about a year now... actually fixes the warlock spellslot problem. basically it emulates innate spellcasting which none of the class has and it makes the warlock much better as a spell caster.
must say, its not breaking anything. really. the warlock still is far from any other casters.
heck even D&D themselves have made the new invocations not requiring the spell slots.
its just they can't fix the player handbook. as they don't want people to have "wrong" rulings.
honestly... everyone should just do that little fix and let them cast the spell 1/ long rest without spell slots. i mean its already picking off an invocation, so it nots like its free.
it also compensate for the weaker Mystical Arcanum which are literally just bad in themselves compared to everything else. so if they can get more higher level spell slots by using invocations, then im fine with it.
just saying, heres the problem with warlocks at higher levels...
- too long to get additionnal spell slots. 2 until level 11 is a no no.
- Mystic Arcanum are bullshit... 1 level slot that can only cast a very specific chosen spell of the specified level.
- most of the invocations actually requires you to cast "WITH" your warlock spell slots, which you have only 2 of.
- warlocks have too many spells chosen while having next to no spell slot to cast them.
- many invocations are traps that actually makes the warlock clunky.
fixes that the warlock should be using to make him on par with other classes.
- the warlock already has the innate spell casting feature that only monsters have had up to this point.
but his ability is all about the first and last innate spellcasting ability which should really be more then that.
heres the innate spellcasting ability functionnality...
At-Will: spell1 spell 2 spell3
- this is already correctly done by invocations that gives at-will spell casting.
3/Long Rest: spell1 spell2 spell3
- none of the invocations gives you any of this...
1/Long Rest: spell1, spell2, spell3
- Only a very specific few gives you this. the others requires spell slot, which innate spellcasting doesn't really use.
the simple fix, is to remove the need for spell slot on trap spell invocations. which enables the user to have more spells in his arsenals and have a way to cat them, which fixes the warlock spell slot problem. while he has only 2 spell slots at lower level, he can still cast more spells even if he needs them to be very specific spells.
- next problem is the invocations that actually makes you weaker... like the levitate spell. unless you use it on the enemy at all times, there is no way this will help you by level 11. by level 11 you already can cast Fly to as many as 3 people at once to fly for 1 hours. Levitate is a spell level 2 and only pushes you upward by 20 feet, and if you wanna go in any other directions, you "NEED" to help yourself with something to get there. so basically, its useless and basically just gotten yourself out of an invocation for a spell that you are never really gonna use unless its on an enemy that you want to be stuck there. otherwise its a very specific situationnal spell. and this invocation is not the only one that renders you weaker... at that point... i'd give you the fly spell instead. thinking that its already only castable on yourself or one another person. but not both. because its casted at its original level all the time. instead of giving it at-will i'd give it a 1/long rest. thats already a much better level 11 invocation. if anything... you could also just lower down the invocation required level to 5. that would also make the invocation more worth it.
Mystical Arcanum would be great if they had the versatility of other spell casters...
so what i would do, is allow you to have 1 spell slot as said by the feature, but it can cast any of your spells.
you already gain them back every long rest, so that is already a drawback compared to your other short rest spell slots.
and that would fix your problem of the high level very specific spell with avery specific spell slot.
You missed the mark at that point, the fact it is strong as nothign to do with how much damage it deals or what type of fdamage it deals.
it has everything to do with the fact that it is not like other cantrips, that is if you miss, you missed point final. in this case it works by attacks. by attacks means that if the first misses, the other 3 still have chances of hitting. each additionnal rolls gives you chances at critting. more rolls the better. now if it stopped there, i'd argue that even that is not abusive... but alas its not stopping there... since they are attack rolls for each blast... it means hex pops up on each and every one of them. that is already abusive... but it doesn't stop there... there is an invocation who adds your charisma to the damage. mix all that up and you got a pretty messed up cantrip ! BUT !!! it doesn't stop there. there is a invocation that reduce the opponent speed, no save required. each attacks might reduce the speed by 10 feet. 4 attacks, means minus 40 to your opponents speed. now there is also an invocation that pushes them backward 10 feet. without any saves whatsoever... catch the drift.... now lets add all this up and compare to desintegrate !!!
thats... 4d12(blast)+4d6(hex)+20(charisma)+40 speed reduction+40 feet push back !
lets calculate the average here...
4d12 = 6.5 x 4 = 26
4d6 = 3.5 x 4 = 14
add the charisma bonuses...
thats a grand total of 26+14+20 = 60 damage average per round !!!
thats with an opponent who becomes a pinball machine by just being pinged around the battlefield, unable to move unless they are a monk.
oh right, there is also an invocation that gives eldritch blast twice the range. thats 240 feet for you.
lets see disintegrate now... just for comparision...
10d6+40 damage...
average to... 10d6 = 3.5 x 10 = 35
grand total of 35 + 40 = 75 average damage ! thats if he doesn't save.
if he saves, thats halved... so its 35 divided by 2... and thats one single roll, no chances of critting... while all 4 of your eldritch blast have a chance at critting all by themselves...
see where the cantrip is heavy... its not the cantrip, its not on par... its the fact that it is on par with the fighter melee weapon. same number of attacks, same damage. but add the invocations and you have a disintegrate at will !!!
thats where the cantrip is considered strong for. the fact its a d12 has no matter into the play. the fact it is force, already helps sure, but again its a very small detail compared to what the cantrip can become with everything else mixed in.
did i mention that my wizard friend has create a gatling gun in my game, just with spells... and i'm not talking magic missile gatling gun... i'm talking Scorching Ray gattling gun !
let me introduce you to his turn...
i cast scorching ray, as a bonus action i put my hex on him. (human variant, he has magic initiate feat)
thats basically... 6d6(3 rays)+3d6(hex pops 3 times because 3 attacks) and thats basically without critting which just doubles any dice...
lets say 1 of them crits... it becomes... 8d6(2 ray + 1 ray crit)+4d6(2 regular hex + 1 hex crit)
just saying, how damaging do you think that is ? now everytimes he cast it at higher levels, it gains another attack.
he basically changed his staff into an assault riffle with either burst mode or full auto.
oh and did i say that once he got to level 4, he added elemental adept which makes people unable to resist his fire damage ? so yeah he can shoot resistant creatures with it and it will hurt them. as well as reroll every 1 and 2 on his dice, making the thing even deadlier... yeah, the others all wonder why they are using revolvers instead of being wizards in my far west exploration game.
yeah there are pretty busted things in 5e...
but back to warlock, yeah it needs to be remade at higher levels...
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)