Personally, I love the idea of homebrew. Unfortunately, most people who create homebrew do not follow the rules. Like some of my homebrew, it doesn’t really follow the rules. My best homebrew is this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/6269615-shadowbound-skeleton it is not even that good. I am gonna do a poll. Select yes if you agree with me or select no if you don’t agree with me.
What do you mean by not following the rules? Do you mean balance? Used language? Syntax?
I've tried to make all of my homebrew items, spells, and monsters be as balanced and official seeming as possible. Sure, I have a joke item or two, but even those should be "following the rules".
Yeah, a lot of homebrew items, spells, and monsters are not balanced and don’t have proper mechanics.
Luckily you don't have to include those into your games. If you find an item concept you really like, but the weapon is severely over/underpowered, tweak it to your needs. I haven't been around for too long as a DM homebrewing my own stuff that I would know how it has evolved over time, but saying "Homebrew ain’t really good anymore" is quite a powerful statement, IMO. Maybe it's true and people just want to create massively overpowered monsters/items nowadays or maybe you've only looked at the "wrong" place.
I usually craft homebrew items and monsters specifically for a certain story. When I've created the monster/item, I write its description as if it's from the official materials. I haven't really looked into the homebrew collection too thoroughly, partly because as you said, they might not have mechanics well described. But mostly it's because when I create from scratch I know the RAW and RAI of the item/monster and I can better explain it to my players if there's confusion or ambiguity.
Personally, I love the idea of homebrew. Unfortunately, most people who create homebrew do not follow the rules. Like some of my homebrew, it doesn’t really follow the rules. My best homebrew is this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/6269615-shadowbound-skeleton it is not even that good. I am gonna do a poll. Select yes if you agree with me or select no if you don’t agree with me.
What do you mean by "anymore"? Are you asserting that at some point everyone (or most people) followed these so-called homebrew rules and that's dropped off? If so, I have two questions:
LOL, as if homebrew was ever even close to balanced. A few creators do try to make quality stuff that is balanced but a tonne is obviously made by teenagers or children to be as OP as possible, many others are made as a joke or otherwise is not and ever was intended to be serious, and some are even made out of spite by DMs frustrated with their players.
The dead ba for example - my answer A HB BA 60' Range cantrip that scales at a d6+mod has a to hit roll based on casting stat and can either harm a foe or heal an ally - problem solved.
Problem #2 Martials being hugely outpaced by casters in Tier 3/4 - HB weapons that scale like cantrips - easy - you should hit harder if your face tanking the dragon than the guy that can re shape reality and stands 120-240 feet back. Lots of stuff like that is the core of good HB.
But yes there are lots of nutty broken items in the DB as well.
Edit WOTC is entirely focused on bringing in new players and having them churn Tier 1/2 over and over (Seasons) so they can sell more content - and has totally abandoned Tiers 3/4 effectively disallowing 50% of the funnest content in the game unless high tier DM's are willing to balance both structurally and on the fly.
Personally, I love the idea of homebrew. Unfortunately, most people who create homebrew do not follow the rules. Like some of my homebrew, it doesn’t really follow the rules. My best homebrew is this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/6269615-shadowbound-skeleton it is not even that good. I am gonna do a poll. Select yes if you agree with me or select no if you don’t agree with me.
Oiia
What do you mean by not following the rules? Do you mean balance? Used language? Syntax?
I've tried to make all of my homebrew items, spells, and monsters be as balanced and official seeming as possible. Sure, I have a joke item or two, but even those should be "following the rules".
Yeah, a lot of homebrew items, spells, and monsters are not balanced and don’t have proper mechanics.
Oiia
I have created exactly 1 race, and it follows the rules just fine, but lots of weapons are way too op.
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Luckily you don't have to include those into your games. If you find an item concept you really like, but the weapon is severely over/underpowered, tweak it to your needs. I haven't been around for too long as a DM homebrewing my own stuff that I would know how it has evolved over time, but saying "Homebrew ain’t really good anymore" is quite a powerful statement, IMO. Maybe it's true and people just want to create massively overpowered monsters/items nowadays or maybe you've only looked at the "wrong" place.
I usually craft homebrew items and monsters specifically for a certain story. When I've created the monster/item, I write its description as if it's from the official materials. I haven't really looked into the homebrew collection too thoroughly, partly because as you said, they might not have mechanics well described. But mostly it's because when I create from scratch I know the RAW and RAI of the item/monster and I can better explain it to my players if there's confusion or ambiguity.
What do you mean by "anymore"? Are you asserting that at some point everyone (or most people) followed these so-called homebrew rules and that's dropped off? If so, I have two questions:
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I'm a homebrewer but all mine are loykey buns. Though I'm just adapting silksong's tools into dnd.
LOL, as if homebrew was ever even close to balanced. A few creators do try to make quality stuff that is balanced but a tonne is obviously made by teenagers or children to be as OP as possible, many others are made as a joke or otherwise is not and ever was intended to be serious, and some are even made out of spite by DMs frustrated with their players.
Much HB is made to fix all the things WOTC wont -
The dead ba for example - my answer A HB BA 60' Range cantrip that scales at a d6+mod has a to hit roll based on casting stat and can either harm a foe or heal an ally - problem solved.
Problem #2 Martials being hugely outpaced by casters in Tier 3/4 - HB weapons that scale like cantrips - easy - you should hit harder if your face tanking the dragon than the guy that can re shape reality and stands 120-240 feet back. Lots of stuff like that is the core of good HB.
But yes there are lots of nutty broken items in the DB as well.
Edit WOTC is entirely focused on bringing in new players and having them churn Tier 1/2 over and over (Seasons) so they can sell more content - and has totally abandoned Tiers 3/4 effectively disallowing 50% of the funnest content in the game unless high tier DM's are willing to balance both structurally and on the fly.