House Rules

This page covers all the various house rules used in my games. In general these rules apply to every game. If a rule is changed or doesn't apply at all, that will be noted on the campaign's page.

Feats

These are for some reason an optional rule. I will opt to use them.

Skills with different abilities

Proficiency with a skill can apply to different ability checks.

Examples:

Constitution (Athletics) check to swim a very long distance.

Charisma (Religion) test to convince someone to perform an action in accordance with their religion.

Short Rests

Characters can only regain resources from a short rest a few times per day (usually twice). After that, they can use a Short Rest to spend resources such as Hit Dice, but must perform a Long Rest before they can start to regain resources from Short Rests again.

Flanking

If two combatants both threaten an enemy (capable of making opportunity attacks) and they are on opposite sides of that creature they gain both a +2 bonus to attacks and checks made against that creature. This works similar to the flanking optional rule in the DMG, but adds a +2 bonus in place of gaining advantage.

Player vs Player (Secrets, Agendas, Combat)

This is a cooperative storytelling game. Everyone is playing the game together as a team. All player characters must be built and played with the idea of meta-game cooperation in mind.

Character secrets can exist. Most characters will have their own secret agendas, hidden from other characters. Sometimes they will even be secret from other players, but this is not the norm. Character agendas, hidden or public, can run in parallel to what the party is doing, but can not work against the group as a whole. Characters agendas can work somewhat against other character agendas, but these must be public to all players and these should be rare.

If a character comes into direct conflict with another character or the party that character will almost always become a non-player character. As the DM I am very likely to work with the player(s) who have run that character previously to flesh out their motives and actions going forward, but the character is likely lost a playable character from that point forward.

Ex: The party takes a job helping a noble family excavate (and exorcise) some old ruins they've discovered on the land they've settled. A character can have a 'hidden' agenda of recovering some specific item or information from the ruins. Two characters can not have hidden agendas to gain exclusive ownership/use of the same item/information. A character can have an agenda involving hiding something from the rest of the party or doing something in secret, but this activity will almost always be revealed to all the players in the game.

Rule Sources (Unearthed Arcana, Homebrew, 3rd Party)

Home brew material is allowed, but everything must be reviewed first. If you find something you want to use just send it to me and we'll work together to bring it into the game.

Under Consideration

These are additional house rules that are under consideration.

Darker

Darkvision is replaced with Low-Light Vision.

Low Light Vision: For 30 ft around you, you can see dim light as if it were bright light. You can't see in darkness.

Superior Darkvision is replaced with Darkvision.

Darkvision: For 30 ft around you, you can see in dim light as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Light spell duration and distance.

Duration becomes Concentration, up to 1 hour. The object you touch must remain within 120 ft or the spell ends.

Potion Toxicity

One magic potion can be consumed safely per long rest without issue. Each potion after the first risks suffering toxicity: negative side effects such as exhaustion and the loss of hit dice.

Healing Potions

Replace the d4's in healing potions with same dice you use for Hit Dice. If you're a multi-class character you use the hit die of whichever class you have the most levels in. Use the higher die if there is a tie.

Success At A Cost

If you fail an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check by a narrow margin (1, 2, or 3) you can choose to instead succeed at a cost. You achieve your goal, but something bad happens to you as a result. The consequence is negotiated with the DM.

Example costs: Lose one more hit dice, lose one or more spell slots, lose 1/4th or 1/2 of your max hit points, gain a negative condition, gain a level of exhaustion, lose gold, be moved to a disadvantageous position.

Lycanthropy

Player characters that contract lycanthropy are in a constant battle to maintain control of their thoughts and actions. As they spend more time fighting the affliction they have a chance to gain a greater level of control. The Lycanthropy page contains custom rules for the disease and these rules completely replace the rules found in the Monster Manual.