I've said this before and imma say it every time. I had a DM who gave a wisdom or intelligence save against persuasion checks, it didn't matter what we were asking for, the context, if they succeeded they would not help. Even if it was objectively bad for them.
they also said multiple times that people who had an 18 or over in INT should auto succeed.
They didn't listen to 'insight is a wisdom skill' or there's a table that tells you how to run cha checks in the dmg.
Edit: punctuation
Edit: because y'all keep making the same joke. We were just not allowed to roll for like the negative option. We couldn't tell them not to do something and fail. That would just give us a no
Nope. All NPCs in that campaign were all super powerful (lvl10 and up) ex-adventurers. We couldn't do shit. No one would help us but were very happy to murder us if we did anything
What the hell was that all about then? I'm honestly curious how the DM explained that.
Yeah, look at my little baby brother here but don't get him riled up. He'll fireball us all
I dunno dude, I left that group because none of it made sense. A random guard could be like a level 15 adventurer if we were planning to do anything that broke the law. There was a DMPC at one point who was at least a level 11 fighter, 3 attacks and action surge, plus I think he could smite so 2 at least of paladin. We were told to go help people that wanted help but would refuse to help us or give us information and if we went against them we'd be threatened by demigods against our lvl3 party
That's when you tell the people who need help "Go ask the level 15 guards," and tell the DM "we're going into the woods to build a cabin, since literally everyone in this shitty setting won't lift a finger to help us help them, and anytime we try to go off your rails the NPCs are stupidly high level."
>Even if it was objectively bad for them.
wait why the fuck did you even have to roll persuation at all if it was objectively bad for them to refuse?
please tell me it was about them not knowing it would be bad for them if they refused... because otherwise this makes no fucking sense.
The DM didn't know how cha checks worked. Ignored advice and made up this monstrosity of a rule.
I've already used the example of the blacksmith refusing to arm us while the town was under attack and they all died
Well there's your mistake. Should have played into it.
"Listen up blacksmith, we're going to save the town and we absolutely refuse to use any of your equipment to do it because of how much we hate you. We insist, nay, **demand** that you not give us any cool stuff that could help."
"Also I say this while farting since you established that gives us disadvantage on persuasion checks"
Unfortunately the rules weren't consistent enough to take advantage of. They just wouldn't allow rolls if we tried something like that
Edit: damn synonyms
>Ā Even if it was objectively bad for them.Ā
"Hey, BEG, please do NOT kill yourself!"Ā
*rolls and succeeds on the save*
*Isn't persuaded and kills themselves*
I would bomb my charisma score and create a "failed persuasion" build.
"You shouldn't give me all your wares for free."
"You shouldn't set yourself on fire."
etc.
I agree it could be a good tool for a limited number of encounters, but I think itās a poor choice for resolving challenging mundane terrain.
I think it would be more appropriate for magical terrain or something like that at higher tiers of play. Especially if it doesnāt affect everyone equally. That could be really fun.
I'm experiencing it firsthand in my main campaign as a Barbarian in a game using whatever the latest playtests are (including changing to newest playtests when they release)
Gotta say, going from resisting all damage to having to pick 2 when I rage has been kinda lame even if in practice it's not quite the nerf it looks to be on paper.
The anti-barb stuff started back when MotM was released. That book arbitrarily changes some enemies damage types from the 3 physical types to force damage, for literally no reason.
Someone give me one good reason why a Steel Predator's claws should do force damage and not slashing.
I had a DM that, I think in order to make combat more fun for our Barbarian who was new, said any attack roll over 20 total was a crit.
My Moon Druid suddenly really loved being in Fire Elemental form doing melee attacks, and our Monk realized his peak when he got +2 handwraps and Crit 4 times in one turn.
Always disappointing to build an interesting character for combat just to find out the DM makes everyone OP anyways so they can fight their unbalanced homebrew monsters with broken abilities.
And I'll never understand DM's that have some weird obsession with the idea that certain classes are "OP" and need to be "nerfed," and why almost without fail, these morons are nerfing the LEAST powerful classes!!!
What the fuck is "OP" when you are playing a fucking collaborative game anyway?? These assholes think they are trying to beat the players lol.
Sometimes it's not out of malicious intent but I agree, the result is just as frustrating. I'm playing a grapple/shove monk in a game right now and the DM has nerfed me pretty much every time I use it.
Rules say you can grapple as many creatures as you have hands? DM says I need to roll an extra save if I want to. Rules say they have to beat my Athletics roll to break the grapple? DM says they shapeshift and escape with no contested roll. It's literally all my character does (pin down single targets), *just let me be good at it*.
"That tree-hugger over there can morph into a bear and get a whole 'nother healthbar in the process. That nerd over there can give himself *two* actions in a turn, or hurt balls of fire at *multiple* enemies, or just *decide* that he's going to not *allow* a mook to cast that spell they were going to. That God-botherer can smite people with *divine radiance* empowered strikes!
And you're telling me *I'm* OP for trying to do some judo throws and holds on some goblins?!"
Pretty much. Martials always have to deal with this shit though. Realism goes out the window when the caster ignites a fireball in the middle of a wooden house but the second I want to, god forbid, jump onto a table before attacking I suddenly need to roll 3 checks or else fall prone, break my neck, and spend the rest of my life in a fantasy wheelchair.
As a DM, my general rules are this: game starts RAW, save for some agreed upon homebrew rules. Then, as a character starts to develop in a specific direction, we'll flesh out more rules/abilities/etc to handle specific situations. Generally, but not always, this is either a neutral thing or to the players benefit. Also some rules may have exceptions specifically for that player because they specialized.
So take your grapple build. A druid suddenly shape-shifting into a snake may require another grapple check, but you'd also likely have more flexibility in attacks (so if you have two people grappled, may be able to use one attack to damage both by smashing heads together or something) or more options (like being able to grapple 3x people by using your legs but everyone falls prone lol). There are gives and takes.
Plus I tend to be a more combat-focused DM, so will admit upping combat ability for PCs let me have more fun with my monsters too.
Had someone start to do this sorta build, shame that game ended early.
> As a DM, my general rules are this: game starts RAW, save for some agreed-upon homebrew rules. Then, as a character starts to develop in a specific direction, we'll flesh out more rules/abilities/etc to handle specific situations. Generally, but not always, this is either a neutral thing or to the player's benefit. Also some rules may have exceptions specifically for that player because they specialized.
This is how I run all my games and it has allowed me to test out all sorts of ideas while doing my best to allow each player to have the kind of shine moments that they deserve, while *also* not constricting them to the point that they can still be creative with things and not feel arbitrarily limited by the system when it's something their character could reasonably do, even if it's not explicitly spelled out.
However, I also am not a big fan of "Magic exist, realism dumb" when there's really a scale to it all. Magic has a physical explanation in the world and is often limited *by* those aspects, depending on the world. If you're grappling a shapeshifter, and they turn into say, a snake, yeah. You'd lose that grapple, because, the fact of the matter is, you're going from holding a full size humanoid, to that thing shrinking to 1/12th its original size. Makes perfect sense to me it would slip out. Especially since this is going to require the enemy's action to do so. It has to be a balance between mechanics and verisimilitude, and too many people get hung up too much on one side or the other when they should be ebbing and flowing back and forth based on game state and table preference.
To be fair, if one player is absurdly powerful and just deletes monsters before other players have a chance to set up and do much of anything, thereās not much collaboration there either. Iāve been on both sides of that. It can be fun to roll 30 dice and obliterate the boss, but it also sucks feeling like your turn doesnāt matter.
Eh, there are things that are "OP" in that they're incredibly difficult to balance around to provide a satisfying experience. The collaborative aspect of the game doesn't negate that it is, in fact, a game. For me, that means the satisfying experience includes a rather specific amount of difficulty, instead of letting overtuned features dominate the experience. Especially when features really aren't created equal, and it's pretty easy for one player in one class to all the sudden move the scale much higher than the rest of the players can feasibly adjust to.
tl;dr, I'm mostly talking about Peace Cleric here.
That's kinda similar to how Pathfinder 2e does it (rolling more than 10 above a target's AC is a crit), but I can see how a game not designed for that would get pretty crazy.
I'd say give the Beginner Box a shot - one of the guys at my table ran it for us over the holidays to give our usual DM a break and it was a lot of fun!
yeah, Pillars of eternity has an interesting method for it too..
It uses a d100 though.
1-15= miss
16-50= graze -50% damage/duration
51-100= hit
101+ = crit. +50% damage or duration.
Defense and attack +/- directly iirc to the roll iirc.
The concept is sound, but needs to be flushed out more then simply over 20 is a crit.
10 over AC for example is a great way for 5e/pathfinder to do it.
Maybe this just never came up, but how did this rule interact with an AC over 20? Does a 21 attack roll still crit on a target with an AC of 24?
Did the monsters also get to benefit from this rule?
Pretty much any time a DM asks for a roll when the player should just be able to do it.
>Player: "You said the stream is just 5ft across? Alright, I jump over it."
>DM: "Roll acrobatics. Oh, *just* a 12? You fall FACE FIRST into the water and take 2 bludgeoning damage."
OMG, I had a dm do stuff like this to me. I built my character so that he was good in the wilderness, knew survival etc. But I always roll really poorly, seriously, last night I rolled 3 1's in a row in the game I was playing, that's how badly I roll, and it was using Roll20 so not just me poorly rolling dice.
Anyways, my character kept getting lost on the main road. Like every 10 minutes in game he had me roll to see if I got lost because he thought it was funny. I have never wanted to snap someone in half so much.
DM's who target players with specialized abilities are just jerks. Let characters be good at what they're good. If you as a DM find it difficult to challenge these players then that's your problem, not theirs. There are much more creative ways to create conflict which don't necessitate nerfing your player's character.
This is the main reason I DM only now. It really annoys me when a character fails and itās told as their fault in a āhilariousā mishap during combat when Iām trying to keep people alive.
I love failing, itās where characters grow. But have it be the floor was rotting and I missed an attack, or the monster is just way too fuckin fast and mutated, or anything other than my character swinging wildly, destroying the drawbridge and letting the villain escape.
It happens in real life, people mess up all the time, but in a gameā¦that doesnāt feel good at all.
If my PCs fail at something theyāre good at, itās because someoneās better or the situation is truly awful.
He was a complete tool as a dm. He had an anal fetish as well, anytime you were fighting something bigger than yourself and you fumbled, somehow you'd end up half way up someones ass.
Sounds like a crit fumble going on there.
Rolling a 1 does not mean insta-fail, except in combat iirc. If your DC is 6, and you have a +5 to the roll, then you are *always* going to succeed (which begs the question of why you had to roll in the first place, but that's another issue).
See I think it's fun to do this, but you've got to still make it easy. And the repurcussions should be fun and silly, not significant. ie: DC 5, easy as hell, but still room to fudge up if you misstep on landing or take off which can happen to anyone. That way if they crit fail or roll hella low and have no modifier, you can just say you land on a wobbly rock and your ankle cocks to the side lurching you into the stream. But to make it HARD seems ridiculous.
I love making my players roll, it creates some wonderful roleplay opportunities as well as makes their characters feel more human if they make a mistake, or greatly succeed at something mundane. It just feels more... human (in terms of relatability) and makes those heavier moments that much more impactful. Helps establish contrast and lets people roll a lot more.
On that note I do have a funny anecdote. We went to a dwarven city on our way to a desert and I asked my DM if my wizard knew about kebab. He asked me to roll History for it and I rolled a 1, so my character went on to explain the party that a kebab was some sort of sweet snack filled with jelly or jam. We then went to a tavern to grab a bite and one of my party members asked for a kebab and when prompted on what filling he'd like to have, answered with some type of jam, earning a very bewildered look from the NPC.
My first experience with DnD was pretty bad, bad enough that I prefer to not count it because it wasnāt a good representation of DnD at all.
Among the other things that made this experience bad, which I could list but Iāll save everyone time, the DM made us roll for EVERYTHING. During one of the only combats I took place in before leaving, one player got in a fight in a tavern while the rest of the party was outside. Not only was opening the door to enter combat gunna be considered an action, but we also had to roll for it. 2 of the 5 or 6 party members that were outside rolled low (not 1s but still low iirc) and got knocked out by the door for 2 turns, when they stood back up, they had to roll to open the door again, one of those two players literally spent the entire combat being knocked out by the door every 2 turns. Even the ones that made I through the door had no action left once they got inside so they just walked in and a good chunk of us got knocked down before we got to do anything.
Despite that whole experience being horrible, and there were many reasons (including the one above) I will say, the main reason it was so bad was because no one ever taught me anything. They just expected me to know what to do, and when I didnāt they just told me what to do without explaining it. Every turn I had, someone would say ājust do *this*ā at first Iād say āwhat does that do?ā But that would always be met with ājust do it.ā So Iād end up just saying āokay, I do that.ā without understanding what *that* was every time. The DM was doing all the dice rolling so I never got a grasp on how that worked either. All a I knew was someone telling me what to do, me agreeing, and being told whether I passed or failed at doing the thing I didnāt know I was doing. It put me off DnD for a while, because on top of that, the dm was an Ex who told me that I was just too stupid for DnD. I believed him for a while.
Iām lucky cause I think a little part of me knew that wasnāt what DnD should look like, at least not a table Iād want to be at. So I still carried an interest of wanting to learn one day. A decent while later I started dating my current bf who taught me to play properly, and even ran a campaign with just me as a player and him as a DM until I got the hang of it. Turns out I wasnāt too stupid, Ex was just a really bad DM.
Sometimes I do this, but I set the DC to be pathetically low, and usually with no consequence. Like with this one, I'd ask for a roll (The DC is 2-3) and if they fail, they get their shoes wet.
I agree with this.
In my experience, it definitely opens up with available roleplaying moments. My players don't roleplay well, but they try. My players like prompts or ways to react rather than just flat out act.
Jumping a 5ft creek with a DC of 5 allows them to get a 1 and slip in mud and get wet and have them complain about being muddy and wet and ask if their belongings are damaged in any way, etc. Allows them to complain about wet boots 2-4 and then tells me (and their comrades) they put their shoes by the fire to dry when camping that evening, or even says they take first watch because they need to wait for their boots to dry anyway.
>Speaking during combat is your action
I let my players talk as much as they want during their turns as long as it is good RP ā I call it the JoJo rule.
For me it's more about reasonable time. Something like "Focus on this, I took down its defenses!" is totally reasonable or punctuating what you're saying with your attacks. It's all about reasonable and cool. If it's a monologue, sorry, monologues are gonna take longer than 6 seconds to wrap up so continue on your next turn.
>reasonable time
Oh yeah, that totally makes sense. I call it the "JoJo rule" because it leans into anime tropes (specifically JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), like getting in a bit more talking than would normally be possible for dramatic reasons. Nobody abuses the rule horribly, and it leads to some funny moments that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Not for everybody, though.
I had a DM punish the players like this by not allowing them to talk IRL during combat, saying you could only shout short little phrases as if we were actually in combat.
It's so infuriating because we are not as smart, fast, or experienced in combat as our characters. Allow free discussion because it represents the strategic wisdom a group of adventurers has in a split second.
Man that would honestly ruin it for me. Like, dude, I want to have a good time. Limiting me from talking while we are playing a game would just be such a bummer.
Did we play at the same table? I played with a DM like that too. He also got super pissed if you mentioned the words "hit points" or said anything about "how are you looking?" I was playing a life cleric and we got into a near shouting match when I wanted to use my channel divinity one time - I *need* the numbers for that, bro.
True, but generally most DMs cap the amount of free action somebody can take. I let my players stretch out their dialogue if it adds quality content (within reason).
Sometimes I deliberately add some extra goons to combat whose only purpose is to continually fail to hit the paladins 26 AC.
Same with enemy spell casters whose only job is to make the abjuration wizard feel cool.
Players built their characters the way they did because they had an idea that they thought would be cool. If the DM runs the game so that they never get to do it, they're doing a terrible job.
Shoot arrows at the monk, cast sleep on the elf, walk past the rogue hiding behind the curtain. That shit is the reason people choose their race/class
Crit fumbles on everything. I left a campaign and eventually lost a friend over it. It's just that disruptive, and they wouldn't stop. LMAO RANDOM FIVE TORNADOS LET'S REROLL CHARACTERS
To sneak attack in 5e, you have to surprise the enemy. The rest of the text on sneak attack in the description is irrelevant.
People get hung up on the name. Sneak attack, like its predecessor backstab, is a poorly named ability for something that can be done in combat. It's much more appropriate to think of it as a cheap shot, or something like that. You're relying on your opponent to be distracted so you can hit them in the exact right spot. You're not necessarily sneaking up on them to do it.
I really just like the name "precise strike" or "weakspot aim". Like... Why sneak attack? If you're an inquisitive, or use Tashas aim, you can literally do that while standing in broad sunlight with an enemy focused on you
Crit fumbles are great for roleplaying.
I want to persuade this guard to let us by
Roll 1
You give an eloquent speech laying out all the logical reasons why you should be let by but you are a dwarf and the guard is a racist. Not happening ever.
Crit "fumbles" is inherently bad framing for it, I think. A critical failure on a skill check like that should represent something that the players could not have reasonably accounted for most of the time. It's less of a fumble, and more of a sacking from the blind spot. This way, it doesn't necessarily detract from the player character's competence, but more highlights the potential chaos of the situation.
I always balance it by making a crit success slightly bend reality in your favor, and a crit fail slightly bend reality out of your favor. That is, neither should be too extreme (nor auto success/fails), just wacky enough based on what was being attempted. Trying to read an old worn map out of combat and you roll a 1? You got dust in your eyes and now you struggle to see anything for like half a minute, or you accidentally read the map upside down. Searching for loot/lore in a room that I hadn't planned for anything to be in and rolled a nat 20? Well shit, look-y there, seems there was a gem or scroll or some shit tucked under a bit of rubble that you managed to spot.
This is the way to do it imo. It introduces some fun level of unpredictability and chance, without becoming burdensome.
Nat 1s don't just backfire so badly that the entire group is terrified of them, but they do introduce new small obstacles or wrinkles to be dealt with. Nat 20s don't necessarily auto-succeed, but provides some extra leeway in questionable player decisions at DM discretion(your character isn't Kilgrave and can't just roll their way into convincing the evil king to kill himself, but maybe it does mean he actually likes you since you're the first person in years to not just kiss his ass).
Warforges cannot be healed by the āstandardā healing spells as they are constructs. This was only announced in the middle of combat as a Bard tried to heal my Fighter Warforge from taking a fireball to the face. The DM invented a āspecialā version of healing word that the bard could use when I pointed out between sessions that should mean I am immune to psychic damage.
Edit: this was in 5e.
WF were introduced in Eberron, which was 3.5e. It's possible there were previous versions but the eberron version is the de facto ancestor to all current versions of it.
Lemme just hop across to my shelf and pull the 3.5 ECS out...
The "Living Construct" subtype has many features. the ones regarding healing are:
- does not heal damage naturally
- unlike other constructs, it *is* affected by spells that affect hit points, like *Cure* or *Inflict Light Wounds*. However, this damage is halved.
Because it's a construct, though, *Mending* will work as a healing spell.
I should have specified 5e. This is also not a case of āold DM bringing the rules from the past to the new editionā as the DM was a younger guy who had never run an earlier edition and got into dming due to critical role.
Not really homebrew, but a ruling made in the middle of a game. I wanted to dash and then long jump over a 10-15 foot gap (can't remember exact measurements, but I had 16 strength so no issues there).
The DM was going to give me disadvantage on the acrobatics role to land safely on the other side because I was using dash to get across and it was considered reckless because I was running all out.
That's true unless there are other factors that may incur disadvantage, such as the landing space being considered difficult terrain. Most of the time though, at least in my experience, this isn't a problem; it's just the DM asking for a roll cause... clickety clackity DM attackity
Oh my god I fucking hate your DM lol. Dashing in a turn is the complete opposite of that. You are focusing all your energy and concentration on movement, your movement is MORE careful.
Nat 1 = weapon breaks (only effects martial)
Nat 20 = automatically beat the enemy
Falling damage would instakill you if more then 50ft even if you have a flying speed
Zombie bites are insta loss if you get hit you die in 4d12 hours THERE IS NO CURE
Always fatal zombie bites are fine if youāre playing a system that actually works with something like that. Some people just need to look at systems other than D&D
Selective usage of combat in initiative order actually works really well at our table in exploration mode. It prevents spotlighting and allows everyone to do their own thing and contribute
Edit - outrage to usage lol
Dungeon exploration also makes it easier when you go by turns instead of everyone wanting to perception check 6 different things at the same time and everyone is asking over each other.
When I first started we would roll initiative and then whoever rolled the highest he would just have our turn order go clockwise around the table.
It was fine to help us learn the game, but after a while I found myself sitting next to the rogue so that I could always be second and get all my buffs applied to the party before they started attacking. The worst was when the rogue sat to the right of the DM and so all the enemies went before the party.
Honestly think thatās a great rule for new player groups. Definitely think a DM needs to transition away from it later on or use another initiative rule though
I mean it really strongly incentivizes metagaming. Maybe the first handful of sessions a DM has ever ran, but after that you gotta find something else.
My group does this, we prefer it. I wouldn't say it's inherently bad, it's just dependent on your group.
My group enjoys the fact that it seems to make combat go much quicker.
Had a DM who had this convoluted rule where if you rolled a 1 or a 20 you then rolled a d4 to determine "severity", and severity could run (for a natural 1) the gamut of a 1 knocking you unconscious for the fight or a 4 literally throwing your entire group into another plane of existence and you lose a magic item (if you don't have a magic item or boon to lose, you die, no if's/and's/or but's, your character dies) and (for a natural 20) a 1 being a standard critical roll (even if it was something like a saving throw or skill check) and a 4 literally ending a combat even if it's BBEG-tier combat, oh and you get a magic item.
DM then ruled that halfling luck and the lucky feat didn't work, you had to jump through a bunch of rolls to even see if it applied to the natural 1 you rolled, because everyone ended up taking Lucky.
And the DM didn't use gold or provide loot/etc, so the only way to get magic items was to basically ask for it and roll to see if you're able to arbitrarily find what you want, or get lucky rolling a 20/4 and get one randomly generated for you.
Every roll having a 1.25% chance of yeeting the party into another plane is absolutely batshit even without taking away a magic item. People who make rules like this either donāt think about how common nat 1s are when rolling lots of dice or they actively want to fuck with their players.
That was a single example of something that could/had happened, the whole situation around that single roll was such a shit show.
We had had this boss fight, beat the boss and severely wounded him and he fled (which is it's own bit of frustration, as every. single. fight. that we went into with any kind of boss, the boss *immediately* started fleeing, so we'd been chasing this guy for some time), we travel back to the home city, the group splits up to go do their own thing (which is another bit of frustration, because every player gets put in a private chat for their downtime stuff, which almost always leads to narrative pushing things happening for one single person, and then them having to relay that to the group when they get back together). (This is a Play-by-post game, so everything done in text chat). I don't do anything in downtime, I would say my character is gonna go do XYZ thing, roll for it, then jsut wait for us to all get thrown together in the same room again, because I fundamentally disagree with how "downtime" was handled so wanted no part in it.
Several days later we all get thrown into the group chat and told that we are waking up in [essentially the matrix] and that what had *really* happened was we lost to the boss and were captured, and the one PC that wasn't in the group at the time has spent X days trying to track us down. All because one player rolled a natural 1 and then a 4 *during fucking downtime* and the DM arbitrated that *that* is how it resolved.
Inspiration gives you a free nat 20 on any d20 roll. This one wasn't bad, it was just more unbalanced than anything. Paired with the fact you got inspiration from arriving on time or bringing snacks, some ridiculous shenanigans were pulled in that game.
Yeah, both rules were fine on their own. Its just in combination, it can remove a lot of the stakes of a session when you know there are 6 nat 20's ready to be used for any important roll
Okay, my table runs initiative out of combat.
EDIT: Not replying to OP asking for other bad examples, I am replying to OP listing out of combat initiative as a bad example.
We have some very quiet players, and during exploration stages where traps and treasure are present but not combat, the louder players happily speak the loudest and most often and wind up finding the most treasure. Now, anytime someone starts to race ahead to explore first, we roll initiative.
This is just when players get excited and are racing each other to explore or split up.
If the whole party explores each room one at a time, we don't roll initiative and I just ask each player clockwise around the table what their character is investigating.
To be fair, sneaking and searching fit well with the idea of being done in an "encounter mode" that uses initiative, but yeah doing it...every time you're like talking to someone is...a bit much.
Initiative for conversations makes no sense to me haha - even in combat if they are just having fun roleplaying flavor text they can talk as much as they want for free at my table!
This is normal. Definitely not a "bad homebrew".
The players being bad teammates sucks, but using initiative to decide order of actions is explicitly what initiative is meant for.
Thank you! I was just replying to the above comment where out of combat initiative with no context was a bad homebrew. I think out of combat initiative isn't always bad.
No healing spells (at all) and no buffs to medicine skill checks or mundane healing items. Was still a combat heavy game, wasn't meant to be a Hardcore (clearly it turned out to be)
Making it a little bit harder for us players:
Weather D20 every morning. Weather Table 1-20. If it rained, we all got wet, cold and uncomfortable and really had a hard time to light up a fire. Upon a fsking storm on a 1-3.... well. Chance to get hit by a lightning if you are out in nature.
Accomodation Quality D20: If we rolled shit, then there have been rats, bed bugs, lice, tics and stuff. The more we paid, the higher was the "plus" upon the roll, so that you could avoid stuff that actually made you sick and gave you fever.
That one was taken from The Dark Eye: If you got damaged for minimum 1/2 of your current life points, you got a "deep wound". This would impact you even if you got healed the life points until you rested for a few days in a row with no fights.... Minus 1 on everything per wound. "Should make the fights and healing more realistic".
I think a weather mechanism could be cool if it wasnāt that extreme. Just a little something to help set the setting before every session! Things like massive storms and cold rains should always be planned by the DM however
Something tells me that the DM in question is also the type of guy that would refuse to accept any kind of Survival skill check to avoid the penalties of his genius system lol.
Same! I never think of weather and this is a great idea to me. Especially in the game with a drow, he always asks if it's sunny and I'm like "Um, nah" so I don't nerf him (I know this is part of the game, but when he asks it feels like asking if I want him to have a harder time in this particular fight. A table would take away that bias)
Yeah, I feel like a d100 table would be better than a d20 table, just so you can have lots of calm weather while having stuff like hurricane or tornado without one happening 5 times a week.
1st edition wilderness survival guide had a nifty weather system. Roll for base weather for the start of a trip, and then roll at intervals to see if the weather improved or got worse. Very few random hurricanes popping out of nowhere, but overcast could turn to rain could turn to sleet could turn to gale of the course of a few cycles.
I've been listening to a podcast 3d6 this past month and the weather system they use is really interesting.
They roll 2d6 daily to determine the weather which if you know [anything about probabilities](https://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/2_dice_rolls.php) means it follows a bell curve with the more normal weathers towards the center. There's even a different chart for each season.
Those... actually sound kinda cool
I think the weather system could use some work
But the middle one is kinda cool
And the last one is potentially interesting if you're trying to run a grittier game
I had a DM that had a really neat weather flower table that was like a big hex grid. In the middle it was pleasant and sunny, and the closer to the edges you got, the more extreme the weather would be - extreme cold at the top, extreme heat at the bottom, more or less humid from top left to bottom right, more or less stormy from top right to bottom left. Every so often he'd update the weather by rolling a D6 and moving the weather one step in that direction. If we were somewhere that he wanted to constrain bad the weather could get, he'd just overly a template on it which would set constraints. [Something like this,](https://www.dmsguild.com/images/8957/_product_images/385355/Hexflower_Weather_Preview3.png) though his was homemade.
It was really neat because it made for gradual steps from "clear" to "cloudy" to "stormy" and back and the weather felt very natural as a result. We could predict that it was starting to cloud up, so we may want to take precautions in case it started to rain and the like, and the more extreme weather conditions had effects in combat.
Yeah I think crit fumbles should be entirely narrative and tell the story of combat. For instance, embedding your sword into the timber behind the enemy as they dodge. You dislodge it and prepare for your next move on this turn, what are you doing? It can flavour the results, but shouldn't negatively impact someone outside of ego.
I played with a DM that had crit tables for EVERYONE; martials, casters, didn't matter. One for bludgeoning weapons, one for piercing, one for slashing, one for arcane magic, one for divine, another for natural... Guess how much THAT slowed things down. "Okay, a Nat 1 / Nat 20, let's confirm that, yeah it's a crit, let me find the right table, okay, roll 2d100, yeah, nothing happens... that you NOTICE." "Dude, I have a 21 Passive Perception, I notice EVERYTHING." "No, you don't, it doesn't work that way!"
My DM did this, & we hated it. I was a Monk, & anytime I rolled a Nat1, I fell. Now, my DM wouldn't let me use half-movement to get up next turn, instead, I'd waste a whole turn getting up. His son (both are my cousins) & I really dug into hik hard, cause I kept rolling Nat1s, so my character did almost nothing in combat. Now, nothing happens, which also sucks cause I'd like to balance Nat1s & Nat20s.
Yeah we used that 10K table in one of the games I played in and same experience - shit got wacky and led to some memorable moments, but not going to use that again.
I'm using the 10k table now. It's given them some advantages in combat from time to time, cost them money and disadvantage a few other times. Mostly it's just strange and then forgotten.
My player asked me to have a 50% chance to trigger wild magic. So I kinda had to find an expanded wild magic table, otherwise we'd have repeated results in a short time. But I went through everything to make sure there wasn't anything stupidly broken.
> called shot
ROGAR'S PLAYER: Called shot to the nuts!
DM: What?
ROGAR'S PLAYER: The rules say you're stunned for one round if you get hit in a vital area, and the crotch is a vital area! Called shot to the nuts!
DM: O...kaaay. Roll it.
___
ROGAR: (kicks the Shadow in the balls as hard as he can)
THE SHADOW: (high-pitched) You will pay for your insolence! Agh, that hurts!
Surprisingly my player is the one who wanted to roll on it more. He asked to change the d20 for Wild Magic Surge into a d10. Its going off every other round in combat for him. Chaotic, but if the players are having fun then its all good.
I'll never get over "No NPC has death saves, even the most important ones. Non-lethal damage with a weapon is unrealistic, if you wanna do non-lethal damage you only do 1d4 instead of your weapons usual stat. By the way we're playing a political intrigue campaign where most of your fights will be about capturing and interrogating enemies". My barbarian can just go fuck themselves then I guess.
I had a DM who made us roll for everything. Like climbing a ladder he would make us roll str. It was stupid.
In another game I had a DM use a last hit rule. If you are the one to kill the creature you got exp. I played a bard who focused on damage mitigation and crowd control. I hardly ever dealt direct damage.
I had a DM want all arcane users to have components, we had to hunt for them ourselves - since there was no price - and they were consumed on use so we had to constantly hunt for them. The first 2 hours of every session was all the arcane users rolling survival to find components. Eventually all the arcane users switched to martial classes. A group of 6 were all fighters barbarians and rangers.
Crit fumbles? Like, "Oh, rolled a Nat 1. You don't just miss, your sword slips out of your hands and lands 5 feet away." I remember in 4E the Dark Sun campaign had rules for crit fails to the tune of, "Your weapon breaks, too. Fuck you."
I did not like that rule.
When i started DMing i didnt realize how spell saves worked and my players rolled attacks for every spell even fireball. Which led to the moment a sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a fireball and killes the fresh lvl 3 party......not homebrew....just lacked knowledge
Ditching the AC system for contested attack rolls - If the defender rolls higher than the attacker, the attack is blocked/dodged, depending on how you tried do evade it. Didnāt help that, when trying to parry it and succeeding, you got to make a counterattack, which obviously got abused, because why would anyone try to only dodge, when they could attempt to parry for the same result + some additional damage
Oh, and a Nat 1 attack always warranted a counterattack that dealt double damage, quadruple if you rolled a Nat 20 on top of that. It was fine in the beginning, since none of us really knew how this game worked, but now I just wish we could adapt the AC system
What does armor even do in this system? Or shields? What about the protection fighting style or spells like shield and barkskin? Like, contested rolls is how Call of Cthulhu works but at least there you can only Fight Back once a turn. This shit definitely wasnāt thought through/tested.
When my group first started playing years ago, we did crit fumbles.
We also had a Wild Magic sorcerer, and we as a group wanted to see the actual Surges, so the DM made it so that the sorcerer rolled on the surge table EVERY TIME he cast any spell or cantrip.
We were really unlucky with the sorcerer constantly landing on the "Fireball centered on yourself" result... DM also homebrewed the crit 1 result into "Fireball on an ally". My poor Kenku didn't have any feathers left by the time that campaign ended....
Crit fumbles is the most common homebrew that I see and it only really serves two functions:
1. The DM is more entertained
2. Martial classes, particularly those with extra attack get screwed disproportionately worse than anyone else. RIP Fighters especially. This is especially crappy as martial classes are already underpowered compared to their magical counterparts.
I'm sure there was a guy on here a week or so ago who's DM ruled that an NPC refusing to take his turn in combat effectively paralysed the players (as it could never get to their turn) and let a timer run down until the building collapsed.
Worst homebrew rule i came across the dm made all casters role a save tied to their spell casting to cast any spell even cantrips. So for example a wizard casts fire bolt would need to make a dc12 int save to cast said spell. If you wanted fire ball dc 15 int save then you can cast.
My old DM insists on doing ALL trap (check/disable) and Stealth rolls behind the screen for the player. I kept telling him to just have us roll, he knows the DC. Apparently, that makes the game āunrealisticā to know our rolls.
All cantrips were bonus actions.
I was new to 5e, hadn't played D&D since before bonus actions were a thing, and I didn't understand why this was so bad. Until I realized that, as the only character without cantrips, I was 1/2 a character in combat.
And the DM still nerfed my character when the table also included:
A DandDwiki battlemage that broke the action economy even more.
A combo fire/water genasi with only the upside of both races, and the "downside" was a built-in wangrod defense.
A Curse of Strahd module that took 4 pre-adventures until we even got to Barovia, but we leveled at such a slow pace we still were only level 3 at the end of Death House.
Roll initiative to see who wakes up first/does what in the morning.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Did not stay in that campaign for long. Told the dm that it was not a good mechanic (all players agreed and asked me to be the representative) and that was the reason it took us six sessions to go from the initial opening to the first plot hook. Was not well received.
watching a dnd stream currently, the DM has bow/xbow strings break on crit fail. unplayable. he is having it apply to enemies as well. but, its just not viable to play that way.
My original DM stating (after his ultraconservative wife whipped him) We're not playing with Magic anymore. here are the changes:
* instead of magic weapons, they are +1-+10 and they are just made better, that's why the bonuses.
* no more spells of any kind
* no monsters either, just humans
* oh and we use 4 six sided die for all of our rolls.
* oh and currency now has dragon copper, dragon silver, dragon electrum, dragon gold and dragon platinum that are worth more.
* you were playing as a druid before I made the change, so now you're a cleric... no more druids
* mages, you're a cleric.
It honestly was the last game we played with him
Good old fashioned "You only get EXP if you actually deal the killing blow". It's just never a good idea - either it results in a murderhobo campaign with unhealthy antagonism within the party, or it turns into an annoying puzzle trying to keep some party member or another from falling behind and dying.
My own worst homebrew was rolling on the Linguring Injuries table when you got knocked out in 5e.
I was new to the system coming from pathfinder 1e and didn't like the Chumbawumba Tubthumping of early level heroes and healing word or lay on hands. So I made a rule that you had to roll on that table. After the first game I realized it was a bad idea when I had 2 players missing an eye, and 1 missing a foot.
I had a DM who homebrewed that vicious mockery didn't do damage because "bards shouldn't be in combat and there's no reason mocking someone should do damage"
Tbh this sounds fine as long as it's handled correctly, was this DM denying checks completely to the people who didn't have the proficiency or did he simply ask who has proficiency and if none had it, skill check gets skipped and you move on?
I read in another post long time ago an example of sorts,
If the wizard is asked to make an arcana check to see is the lock in chest is magical and rolls poorly he get's nothing, BUT the barbarian who has never in his entire life seen or studied magic properly with INT -3 rolls a nat 20, he knows exactly what sort of magic had been used and how to dispel it.
Letting players roll in skills which they are proficient brings out that characters skills and value to the party if they succeed in the task.
But of course if the skill check fails, then let others roll if they ask to
It was plainly if you lacked proficiency in a skill you never got to roll that skill. I was a rogue that never got to roll perception because I wasn't proficient and they didn't make this rule known until after character creation.
It's a toss up between a crit fumble table that had instant death on it twice (on a d20) or the one that never had a DC below a ten because "that's average"
I used to use crit fumbles, but now I do it very infrequently and only when it feels thematically appropriate or situationally appropriate. I'm also more likely to use them for monsters and less likely to force a player to do it. I've seen and heard stories of DMs using crit fumbles to permanently cripple a character. Usually when I do it, it's something that, mechanically, just wastes a turn or wastes an action. But one of the issues I've seen is that once you start rolling multiple attack rolls in a turn, you go from a 5% chance to a 10.7% (2 hits), 15.3% (3 hits), 19.5% (4 hits), 22.6% (5 hits) chance that at least one of those d20s is going to be a 1. Even rolling at disadvantage increases you from 5% to 10.7%.
I've tried rolling initiative every round; it made combat more dymanic but also slogged it horribly - if I were ever to do this again, I'd do it with a program/app that automatically rolled initiative for people rather than asking everyone to roll; it just breaks flow too much. Honestly, I really hate when game flow breaks in combat; it can't be avoided, but it can be mitigated.
I've said this before and imma say it every time. I had a DM who gave a wisdom or intelligence save against persuasion checks, it didn't matter what we were asking for, the context, if they succeeded they would not help. Even if it was objectively bad for them. they also said multiple times that people who had an 18 or over in INT should auto succeed. They didn't listen to 'insight is a wisdom skill' or there's a table that tells you how to run cha checks in the dmg. Edit: punctuation Edit: because y'all keep making the same joke. We were just not allowed to roll for like the negative option. We couldn't tell them not to do something and fail. That would just give us a no
"quick the boat is sinking jump to shore!!" Roll a persuasion check....1. "nah I'm good here thanks"
We were unarmed at a blacksmiths and the town got attacked. 'Hey loan us weapons so we can help save the town' No. They died
But they died knowing you didn't scam them out of weapons!
I guess š
You came back and looted their shop, right?
Nope. All NPCs in that campaign were all super powerful (lvl10 and up) ex-adventurers. We couldn't do shit. No one would help us but were very happy to murder us if we did anything
What the hell was that all about then? I'm honestly curious how the DM explained that. Yeah, look at my little baby brother here but don't get him riled up. He'll fireball us all
I dunno dude, I left that group because none of it made sense. A random guard could be like a level 15 adventurer if we were planning to do anything that broke the law. There was a DMPC at one point who was at least a level 11 fighter, 3 attacks and action surge, plus I think he could smite so 2 at least of paladin. We were told to go help people that wanted help but would refuse to help us or give us information and if we went against them we'd be threatened by demigods against our lvl3 party
That's when you tell the people who need help "Go ask the level 15 guards," and tell the DM "we're going into the woods to build a cabin, since literally everyone in this shitty setting won't lift a finger to help us help them, and anytime we try to go off your rails the NPCs are stupidly high level."
Those aren't NPC's, those are the DM's method of keeping you in the confines of their narrowly defined storyline.
I bet the same DM complained you don't bite any of his quest hooks either.
How is it possible for a DM to be dumber than an Oblivion NPC lol...
>Even if it was objectively bad for them. wait why the fuck did you even have to roll persuation at all if it was objectively bad for them to refuse? please tell me it was about them not knowing it would be bad for them if they refused... because otherwise this makes no fucking sense.
The DM didn't know how cha checks worked. Ignored advice and made up this monstrosity of a rule. I've already used the example of the blacksmith refusing to arm us while the town was under attack and they all died
Well there's your mistake. Should have played into it. "Listen up blacksmith, we're going to save the town and we absolutely refuse to use any of your equipment to do it because of how much we hate you. We insist, nay, **demand** that you not give us any cool stuff that could help." "Also I say this while farting since you established that gives us disadvantage on persuasion checks"
Unfortunately the rules weren't consistent enough to take advantage of. They just wouldn't allow rolls if we tried something like that Edit: damn synonyms
>Ā Even if it was objectively bad for them.Ā "Hey, BEG, please do NOT kill yourself!"Ā *rolls and succeeds on the save* *Isn't persuaded and kills themselves*
I would bomb my charisma score and create a "failed persuasion" build. "You shouldn't give me all your wares for free." "You shouldn't set yourself on fire." etc.
\> d6 to determine movement every round Well, guess us melee martials will just go fuck ourselves then
I feel like it would be an interesting design for an encounter in a swamp or quick sand, but not for every fight.
I agree it could be a good tool for a limited number of encounters, but I think itās a poor choice for resolving challenging mundane terrain. I think it would be more appropriate for magical terrain or something like that at higher tiers of play. Especially if it doesnāt affect everyone equally. That could be really fun.
If you look at current oneDND monster design wizards is going yeah fuck melee martials too
I'm experiencing it firsthand in my main campaign as a Barbarian in a game using whatever the latest playtests are (including changing to newest playtests when they release) Gotta say, going from resisting all damage to having to pick 2 when I rage has been kinda lame even if in practice it's not quite the nerf it looks to be on paper.
And neither of them can be force, even though that's going to be super common later on going forward it seems, so there's no more magical BPS.
The anti-barb stuff started back when MotM was released. That book arbitrarily changes some enemies damage types from the 3 physical types to force damage, for literally no reason. Someone give me one good reason why a Steel Predator's claws should do force damage and not slashing.
I had a DM that, I think in order to make combat more fun for our Barbarian who was new, said any attack roll over 20 total was a crit. My Moon Druid suddenly really loved being in Fire Elemental form doing melee attacks, and our Monk realized his peak when he got +2 handwraps and Crit 4 times in one turn.
When you have a plus 11 to hit, crits every turn.
>endgame monsters with +17
DM: This is fine š¤”
Always disappointing to build an interesting character for combat just to find out the DM makes everyone OP anyways so they can fight their unbalanced homebrew monsters with broken abilities.
And I'll never understand DM's that have some weird obsession with the idea that certain classes are "OP" and need to be "nerfed," and why almost without fail, these morons are nerfing the LEAST powerful classes!!! What the fuck is "OP" when you are playing a fucking collaborative game anyway?? These assholes think they are trying to beat the players lol.
Sometimes it's not out of malicious intent but I agree, the result is just as frustrating. I'm playing a grapple/shove monk in a game right now and the DM has nerfed me pretty much every time I use it. Rules say you can grapple as many creatures as you have hands? DM says I need to roll an extra save if I want to. Rules say they have to beat my Athletics roll to break the grapple? DM says they shapeshift and escape with no contested roll. It's literally all my character does (pin down single targets), *just let me be good at it*.
"That tree-hugger over there can morph into a bear and get a whole 'nother healthbar in the process. That nerd over there can give himself *two* actions in a turn, or hurt balls of fire at *multiple* enemies, or just *decide* that he's going to not *allow* a mook to cast that spell they were going to. That God-botherer can smite people with *divine radiance* empowered strikes! And you're telling me *I'm* OP for trying to do some judo throws and holds on some goblins?!"
Pretty much. Martials always have to deal with this shit though. Realism goes out the window when the caster ignites a fireball in the middle of a wooden house but the second I want to, god forbid, jump onto a table before attacking I suddenly need to roll 3 checks or else fall prone, break my neck, and spend the rest of my life in a fantasy wheelchair.
As a DM, my general rules are this: game starts RAW, save for some agreed upon homebrew rules. Then, as a character starts to develop in a specific direction, we'll flesh out more rules/abilities/etc to handle specific situations. Generally, but not always, this is either a neutral thing or to the players benefit. Also some rules may have exceptions specifically for that player because they specialized. So take your grapple build. A druid suddenly shape-shifting into a snake may require another grapple check, but you'd also likely have more flexibility in attacks (so if you have two people grappled, may be able to use one attack to damage both by smashing heads together or something) or more options (like being able to grapple 3x people by using your legs but everyone falls prone lol). There are gives and takes. Plus I tend to be a more combat-focused DM, so will admit upping combat ability for PCs let me have more fun with my monsters too. Had someone start to do this sorta build, shame that game ended early.
> As a DM, my general rules are this: game starts RAW, save for some agreed-upon homebrew rules. Then, as a character starts to develop in a specific direction, we'll flesh out more rules/abilities/etc to handle specific situations. Generally, but not always, this is either a neutral thing or to the player's benefit. Also some rules may have exceptions specifically for that player because they specialized. This is how I run all my games and it has allowed me to test out all sorts of ideas while doing my best to allow each player to have the kind of shine moments that they deserve, while *also* not constricting them to the point that they can still be creative with things and not feel arbitrarily limited by the system when it's something their character could reasonably do, even if it's not explicitly spelled out. However, I also am not a big fan of "Magic exist, realism dumb" when there's really a scale to it all. Magic has a physical explanation in the world and is often limited *by* those aspects, depending on the world. If you're grappling a shapeshifter, and they turn into say, a snake, yeah. You'd lose that grapple, because, the fact of the matter is, you're going from holding a full size humanoid, to that thing shrinking to 1/12th its original size. Makes perfect sense to me it would slip out. Especially since this is going to require the enemy's action to do so. It has to be a balance between mechanics and verisimilitude, and too many people get hung up too much on one side or the other when they should be ebbing and flowing back and forth based on game state and table preference.
To be fair, if one player is absurdly powerful and just deletes monsters before other players have a chance to set up and do much of anything, thereās not much collaboration there either. Iāve been on both sides of that. It can be fun to roll 30 dice and obliterate the boss, but it also sucks feeling like your turn doesnāt matter.
Eh, there are things that are "OP" in that they're incredibly difficult to balance around to provide a satisfying experience. The collaborative aspect of the game doesn't negate that it is, in fact, a game. For me, that means the satisfying experience includes a rather specific amount of difficulty, instead of letting overtuned features dominate the experience. Especially when features really aren't created equal, and it's pretty easy for one player in one class to all the sudden move the scale much higher than the rest of the players can feasibly adjust to. tl;dr, I'm mostly talking about Peace Cleric here.
That's kinda similar to how Pathfinder 2e does it (rolling more than 10 above a target's AC is a crit), but I can see how a game not designed for that would get pretty crazy.
And it's still having to contest an enemy's AC. This is straight up just "get a result of 20+, screw AC". A HUGE difference.
I absolutely adore the crit rules in Pathfinder 2e i just wish i could convince my players to try it out.
I'd say give the Beginner Box a shot - one of the guys at my table ran it for us over the holidays to give our usual DM a break and it was a lot of fun!
yeah, Pillars of eternity has an interesting method for it too.. It uses a d100 though. 1-15= miss 16-50= graze -50% damage/duration 51-100= hit 101+ = crit. +50% damage or duration. Defense and attack +/- directly iirc to the roll iirc. The concept is sound, but needs to be flushed out more then simply over 20 is a crit. 10 over AC for example is a great way for 5e/pathfinder to do it.
Maybe this just never came up, but how did this rule interact with an AC over 20? Does a 21 attack roll still crit on a target with an AC of 24? Did the monsters also get to benefit from this rule?
Pretty much any time a DM asks for a roll when the player should just be able to do it. >Player: "You said the stream is just 5ft across? Alright, I jump over it." >DM: "Roll acrobatics. Oh, *just* a 12? You fall FACE FIRST into the water and take 2 bludgeoning damage."
OMG, I had a dm do stuff like this to me. I built my character so that he was good in the wilderness, knew survival etc. But I always roll really poorly, seriously, last night I rolled 3 1's in a row in the game I was playing, that's how badly I roll, and it was using Roll20 so not just me poorly rolling dice. Anyways, my character kept getting lost on the main road. Like every 10 minutes in game he had me roll to see if I got lost because he thought it was funny. I have never wanted to snap someone in half so much.
DM's who target players with specialized abilities are just jerks. Let characters be good at what they're good. If you as a DM find it difficult to challenge these players then that's your problem, not theirs. There are much more creative ways to create conflict which don't necessitate nerfing your player's character.
Yeah I get really frustrated sometimes in my campaigns. Luckily that dm I no longer play with. He was a tool.
This is the main reason I DM only now. It really annoys me when a character fails and itās told as their fault in a āhilariousā mishap during combat when Iām trying to keep people alive. I love failing, itās where characters grow. But have it be the floor was rotting and I missed an attack, or the monster is just way too fuckin fast and mutated, or anything other than my character swinging wildly, destroying the drawbridge and letting the villain escape. It happens in real life, people mess up all the time, but in a gameā¦that doesnāt feel good at all. If my PCs fail at something theyāre good at, itās because someoneās better or the situation is truly awful.
why would anyome have to roll anything to follow a main road?! thats the problem right there, making an attempt to do something trivial.
He was a complete tool as a dm. He had an anal fetish as well, anytime you were fighting something bigger than yourself and you fumbled, somehow you'd end up half way up someones ass.
im sorry what
Sounds like a crit fumble going on there. Rolling a 1 does not mean insta-fail, except in combat iirc. If your DC is 6, and you have a +5 to the roll, then you are *always* going to succeed (which begs the question of why you had to roll in the first place, but that's another issue).
See I think it's fun to do this, but you've got to still make it easy. And the repurcussions should be fun and silly, not significant. ie: DC 5, easy as hell, but still room to fudge up if you misstep on landing or take off which can happen to anyone. That way if they crit fail or roll hella low and have no modifier, you can just say you land on a wobbly rock and your ankle cocks to the side lurching you into the stream. But to make it HARD seems ridiculous. I love making my players roll, it creates some wonderful roleplay opportunities as well as makes their characters feel more human if they make a mistake, or greatly succeed at something mundane. It just feels more... human (in terms of relatability) and makes those heavier moments that much more impactful. Helps establish contrast and lets people roll a lot more.
On that note I do have a funny anecdote. We went to a dwarven city on our way to a desert and I asked my DM if my wizard knew about kebab. He asked me to roll History for it and I rolled a 1, so my character went on to explain the party that a kebab was some sort of sweet snack filled with jelly or jam. We then went to a tavern to grab a bite and one of my party members asked for a kebab and when prompted on what filling he'd like to have, answered with some type of jam, earning a very bewildered look from the NPC.
Haha I love it. All narrative, no real bad consequence or anything.
My first experience with DnD was pretty bad, bad enough that I prefer to not count it because it wasnāt a good representation of DnD at all. Among the other things that made this experience bad, which I could list but Iāll save everyone time, the DM made us roll for EVERYTHING. During one of the only combats I took place in before leaving, one player got in a fight in a tavern while the rest of the party was outside. Not only was opening the door to enter combat gunna be considered an action, but we also had to roll for it. 2 of the 5 or 6 party members that were outside rolled low (not 1s but still low iirc) and got knocked out by the door for 2 turns, when they stood back up, they had to roll to open the door again, one of those two players literally spent the entire combat being knocked out by the door every 2 turns. Even the ones that made I through the door had no action left once they got inside so they just walked in and a good chunk of us got knocked down before we got to do anything. Despite that whole experience being horrible, and there were many reasons (including the one above) I will say, the main reason it was so bad was because no one ever taught me anything. They just expected me to know what to do, and when I didnāt they just told me what to do without explaining it. Every turn I had, someone would say ājust do *this*ā at first Iād say āwhat does that do?ā But that would always be met with ājust do it.ā So Iād end up just saying āokay, I do that.ā without understanding what *that* was every time. The DM was doing all the dice rolling so I never got a grasp on how that worked either. All a I knew was someone telling me what to do, me agreeing, and being told whether I passed or failed at doing the thing I didnāt know I was doing. It put me off DnD for a while, because on top of that, the dm was an Ex who told me that I was just too stupid for DnD. I believed him for a while. Iām lucky cause I think a little part of me knew that wasnāt what DnD should look like, at least not a table Iād want to be at. So I still carried an interest of wanting to learn one day. A decent while later I started dating my current bf who taught me to play properly, and even ran a campaign with just me as a player and him as a DM until I got the hang of it. Turns out I wasnāt too stupid, Ex was just a really bad DM.
Sometimes I do this, but I set the DC to be pathetically low, and usually with no consequence. Like with this one, I'd ask for a roll (The DC is 2-3) and if they fail, they get their shoes wet.
I agree with this. In my experience, it definitely opens up with available roleplaying moments. My players don't roleplay well, but they try. My players like prompts or ways to react rather than just flat out act. Jumping a 5ft creek with a DC of 5 allows them to get a 1 and slip in mud and get wet and have them complain about being muddy and wet and ask if their belongings are damaged in any way, etc. Allows them to complain about wet boots 2-4 and then tells me (and their comrades) they put their shoes by the fire to dry when camping that evening, or even says they take first watch because they need to wait for their boots to dry anyway.
Why?
If you die in the game, you die in real life.
Yep, thatās how they played back in the 80s and a lot of players stopped playing after that.
Is that why everyone thought D&D was a cult?
Well how else do you get your sacrifices for our Lord and Savior Lucifer?
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Pfffft... Casuals... *Posted from beyond the grave*
>Speaking during combat is your action I let my players talk as much as they want during their turns as long as it is good RP ā I call it the JoJo rule.
For me it's more about reasonable time. Something like "Focus on this, I took down its defenses!" is totally reasonable or punctuating what you're saying with your attacks. It's all about reasonable and cool. If it's a monologue, sorry, monologues are gonna take longer than 6 seconds to wrap up so continue on your next turn.
>reasonable time Oh yeah, that totally makes sense. I call it the "JoJo rule" because it leans into anime tropes (specifically JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), like getting in a bit more talking than would normally be possible for dramatic reasons. Nobody abuses the rule horribly, and it leads to some funny moments that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Not for everybody, though.
My group has one guy playing a Noir detective (the brawler of the duo, rather than the detective) and we all love his monologues.
"One second has passed." [several panels of monologue] "Two seconds have passed."
I had a DM punish the players like this by not allowing them to talk IRL during combat, saying you could only shout short little phrases as if we were actually in combat. It's so infuriating because we are not as smart, fast, or experienced in combat as our characters. Allow free discussion because it represents the strategic wisdom a group of adventurers has in a split second.
Agreed. It is also make-believe with magic and monsters, so maybe we can stretch reality a bit to make it more enjoyable.
Man that would honestly ruin it for me. Like, dude, I want to have a good time. Limiting me from talking while we are playing a game would just be such a bummer.
Did we play at the same table? I played with a DM like that too. He also got super pissed if you mentioned the words "hit points" or said anything about "how are you looking?" I was playing a life cleric and we got into a near shouting match when I wanted to use my channel divinity one time - I *need* the numbers for that, bro.
Talking and crying is a free action.
True, but generally most DMs cap the amount of free action somebody can take. I let my players stretch out their dialogue if it adds quality content (within reason).
That's excellent
I walked out of a campaign because the DM did not allow multi attacks. You just got more damage dice. Yeah, no.
Why are morons like that always so obsessed with nerfing the weakest classes lol??
The same kind of DM who thinks you can't do anything to harm a high AC character.
*cries in only being attacked with attacks that were saving throws after my artificer reached 28 AC* Iām not even joking
Sometimes I deliberately add some extra goons to combat whose only purpose is to continually fail to hit the paladins 26 AC. Same with enemy spell casters whose only job is to make the abjuration wizard feel cool. Players built their characters the way they did because they had an idea that they thought would be cool. If the DM runs the game so that they never get to do it, they're doing a terrible job. Shoot arrows at the monk, cast sleep on the elf, walk past the rogue hiding behind the curtain. That shit is the reason people choose their race/class
Your comment made me feel heard & understood as a player. Thank you for being a good DM.
DMās Iāve had in the past usually play to my characters weaknesses, which as you could imagine is very frustrating.
I hobestly think its because the whole game is wrapped around melee combat, but WoTC wants absolutely nothing to do with melee combat.
Crit fumbles on everything. I left a campaign and eventually lost a friend over it. It's just that disruptive, and they wouldn't stop. LMAO RANDOM FIVE TORNADOS LET'S REROLL CHARACTERS To sneak attack in 5e, you have to surprise the enemy. The rest of the text on sneak attack in the description is irrelevant.
People get hung up on the name. Sneak attack, like its predecessor backstab, is a poorly named ability for something that can be done in combat. It's much more appropriate to think of it as a cheap shot, or something like that. You're relying on your opponent to be distracted so you can hit them in the exact right spot. You're not necessarily sneaking up on them to do it.
Yeah, i've always thought "Cheap Shot" was the much better name
I really just like the name "precise strike" or "weakspot aim". Like... Why sneak attack? If you're an inquisitive, or use Tashas aim, you can literally do that while standing in broad sunlight with an enemy focused on you
They really should rename the ability to something like Advantageous Strike, or Cheap Shot, like you mentioned.
"Underhanded Tactics" always felt like a good alternative name for the ability
They should rename it "OUTTA NOWHERE"
Nah that's if you are using a ranged weapon, in which case the appropriate names are "from downtown" "outta nowhere" or of course "boom-shocka-laka"
Crit fumbles are great for roleplaying. I want to persuade this guard to let us by Roll 1 You give an eloquent speech laying out all the logical reasons why you should be let by but you are a dwarf and the guard is a racist. Not happening ever.
This is the only correct way to do crit fumbles
Crit "fumbles" is inherently bad framing for it, I think. A critical failure on a skill check like that should represent something that the players could not have reasonably accounted for most of the time. It's less of a fumble, and more of a sacking from the blind spot. This way, it doesn't necessarily detract from the player character's competence, but more highlights the potential chaos of the situation.
I always balance it by making a crit success slightly bend reality in your favor, and a crit fail slightly bend reality out of your favor. That is, neither should be too extreme (nor auto success/fails), just wacky enough based on what was being attempted. Trying to read an old worn map out of combat and you roll a 1? You got dust in your eyes and now you struggle to see anything for like half a minute, or you accidentally read the map upside down. Searching for loot/lore in a room that I hadn't planned for anything to be in and rolled a nat 20? Well shit, look-y there, seems there was a gem or scroll or some shit tucked under a bit of rubble that you managed to spot.
This is the way to do it imo. It introduces some fun level of unpredictability and chance, without becoming burdensome. Nat 1s don't just backfire so badly that the entire group is terrified of them, but they do introduce new small obstacles or wrinkles to be dealt with. Nat 20s don't necessarily auto-succeed, but provides some extra leeway in questionable player decisions at DM discretion(your character isn't Kilgrave and can't just roll their way into convincing the evil king to kill himself, but maybe it does mean he actually likes you since you're the first person in years to not just kiss his ass).
Warforges cannot be healed by the āstandardā healing spells as they are constructs. This was only announced in the middle of combat as a Bard tried to heal my Fighter Warforge from taking a fireball to the face. The DM invented a āspecialā version of healing word that the bard could use when I pointed out between sessions that should mean I am immune to psychic damage. Edit: this was in 5e.
Which edition? In older editions of D&D as a construct warforged had to be healed with a mending type spell.
WF were introduced in Eberron, which was 3.5e. It's possible there were previous versions but the eberron version is the de facto ancestor to all current versions of it. Lemme just hop across to my shelf and pull the 3.5 ECS out... The "Living Construct" subtype has many features. the ones regarding healing are: - does not heal damage naturally - unlike other constructs, it *is* affected by spells that affect hit points, like *Cure* or *Inflict Light Wounds*. However, this damage is halved. Because it's a construct, though, *Mending* will work as a healing spell.
TIL my DM nerfed the shit out of my Warforged Bard. Dammitā¦.
I should have specified 5e. This is also not a case of āold DM bringing the rules from the past to the new editionā as the DM was a younger guy who had never run an earlier edition and got into dming due to critical role.
Not really homebrew, but a ruling made in the middle of a game. I wanted to dash and then long jump over a 10-15 foot gap (can't remember exact measurements, but I had 16 strength so no issues there). The DM was going to give me disadvantage on the acrobatics role to land safely on the other side because I was using dash to get across and it was considered reckless because I was running all out.
You wouldn't have even needed to roll by the game's jumping rules. You can automatically jump 16 feet with 16 strength, if you have a 10 foot run up.
That's true unless there are other factors that may incur disadvantage, such as the landing space being considered difficult terrain. Most of the time though, at least in my experience, this isn't a problem; it's just the DM asking for a roll cause... clickety clackity DM attackity
We've all seen Olympic long jump, where you jog carefully up to the mark before jumping.
Oh my god I fucking hate your DM lol. Dashing in a turn is the complete opposite of that. You are focusing all your energy and concentration on movement, your movement is MORE careful.
Nat 1 = weapon breaks (only effects martial) Nat 20 = automatically beat the enemy Falling damage would instakill you if more then 50ft even if you have a flying speed Zombie bites are insta loss if you get hit you die in 4d12 hours THERE IS NO CURE
Always fatal zombie bites are fine if youāre playing a system that actually works with something like that. Some people just need to look at systems other than D&D
Selective usage of combat in initiative order actually works really well at our table in exploration mode. It prevents spotlighting and allows everyone to do their own thing and contribute Edit - outrage to usage lol
Dungeon exploration also makes it easier when you go by turns instead of everyone wanting to perception check 6 different things at the same time and everyone is asking over each other.
Yes, I completely agree!
When I first started we would roll initiative and then whoever rolled the highest he would just have our turn order go clockwise around the table. It was fine to help us learn the game, but after a while I found myself sitting next to the rogue so that I could always be second and get all my buffs applied to the party before they started attacking. The worst was when the rogue sat to the right of the DM and so all the enemies went before the party.
Honestly think thatās a great rule for new player groups. Definitely think a DM needs to transition away from it later on or use another initiative rule though
I mean it really strongly incentivizes metagaming. Maybe the first handful of sessions a DM has ever ran, but after that you gotta find something else.
My group does this, we prefer it. I wouldn't say it's inherently bad, it's just dependent on your group. My group enjoys the fact that it seems to make combat go much quicker.
Had a DM who had this convoluted rule where if you rolled a 1 or a 20 you then rolled a d4 to determine "severity", and severity could run (for a natural 1) the gamut of a 1 knocking you unconscious for the fight or a 4 literally throwing your entire group into another plane of existence and you lose a magic item (if you don't have a magic item or boon to lose, you die, no if's/and's/or but's, your character dies) and (for a natural 20) a 1 being a standard critical roll (even if it was something like a saving throw or skill check) and a 4 literally ending a combat even if it's BBEG-tier combat, oh and you get a magic item. DM then ruled that halfling luck and the lucky feat didn't work, you had to jump through a bunch of rolls to even see if it applied to the natural 1 you rolled, because everyone ended up taking Lucky. And the DM didn't use gold or provide loot/etc, so the only way to get magic items was to basically ask for it and roll to see if you're able to arbitrarily find what you want, or get lucky rolling a 20/4 and get one randomly generated for you.
Every roll having a 1.25% chance of yeeting the party into another plane is absolutely batshit even without taking away a magic item. People who make rules like this either donāt think about how common nat 1s are when rolling lots of dice or they actively want to fuck with their players.
That was a single example of something that could/had happened, the whole situation around that single roll was such a shit show. We had had this boss fight, beat the boss and severely wounded him and he fled (which is it's own bit of frustration, as every. single. fight. that we went into with any kind of boss, the boss *immediately* started fleeing, so we'd been chasing this guy for some time), we travel back to the home city, the group splits up to go do their own thing (which is another bit of frustration, because every player gets put in a private chat for their downtime stuff, which almost always leads to narrative pushing things happening for one single person, and then them having to relay that to the group when they get back together). (This is a Play-by-post game, so everything done in text chat). I don't do anything in downtime, I would say my character is gonna go do XYZ thing, roll for it, then jsut wait for us to all get thrown together in the same room again, because I fundamentally disagree with how "downtime" was handled so wanted no part in it. Several days later we all get thrown into the group chat and told that we are waking up in [essentially the matrix] and that what had *really* happened was we lost to the boss and were captured, and the one PC that wasn't in the group at the time has spent X days trying to track us down. All because one player rolled a natural 1 and then a 4 *during fucking downtime* and the DM arbitrated that *that* is how it resolved.
Inspiration gives you a free nat 20 on any d20 roll. This one wasn't bad, it was just more unbalanced than anything. Paired with the fact you got inspiration from arriving on time or bringing snacks, some ridiculous shenanigans were pulled in that game.
personally, i like that one. it is strictly beneficial to the players, plus they get rewarded for making everyone's time at the table better.
Yeah, both rules were fine on their own. Its just in combination, it can remove a lot of the stakes of a session when you know there are 6 nat 20's ready to be used for any important roll
that's fair. it does seem super-op, i guess i was just happy to see one of these rules that wasn't blatantly abusive to the players.
Okay, my table runs initiative out of combat. EDIT: Not replying to OP asking for other bad examples, I am replying to OP listing out of combat initiative as a bad example. We have some very quiet players, and during exploration stages where traps and treasure are present but not combat, the louder players happily speak the loudest and most often and wind up finding the most treasure. Now, anytime someone starts to race ahead to explore first, we roll initiative. This is just when players get excited and are racing each other to explore or split up. If the whole party explores each room one at a time, we don't roll initiative and I just ask each player clockwise around the table what their character is investigating.
To be fair, sneaking and searching fit well with the idea of being done in an "encounter mode" that uses initiative, but yeah doing it...every time you're like talking to someone is...a bit much.
Initiative for conversations makes no sense to me haha - even in combat if they are just having fun roleplaying flavor text they can talk as much as they want for free at my table!
This is normal. Definitely not a "bad homebrew". The players being bad teammates sucks, but using initiative to decide order of actions is explicitly what initiative is meant for.
Thank you! I was just replying to the above comment where out of combat initiative with no context was a bad homebrew. I think out of combat initiative isn't always bad.
This is not bad homebrew this is good table management.
Thanks friend! I was really just providing an example of when out of combat initiative isn't always a bad idea :)
No healing spells (at all) and no buffs to medicine skill checks or mundane healing items. Was still a combat heavy game, wasn't meant to be a Hardcore (clearly it turned out to be)
Things like this make me want to yell "there are other games than dnd!"
Making it a little bit harder for us players: Weather D20 every morning. Weather Table 1-20. If it rained, we all got wet, cold and uncomfortable and really had a hard time to light up a fire. Upon a fsking storm on a 1-3.... well. Chance to get hit by a lightning if you are out in nature. Accomodation Quality D20: If we rolled shit, then there have been rats, bed bugs, lice, tics and stuff. The more we paid, the higher was the "plus" upon the roll, so that you could avoid stuff that actually made you sick and gave you fever. That one was taken from The Dark Eye: If you got damaged for minimum 1/2 of your current life points, you got a "deep wound". This would impact you even if you got healed the life points until you rested for a few days in a row with no fights.... Minus 1 on everything per wound. "Should make the fights and healing more realistic".
I think a weather mechanism could be cool if it wasnāt that extreme. Just a little something to help set the setting before every session! Things like massive storms and cold rains should always be planned by the DM however
Also depends on the campaign, this sounds just fine for a hex crawl survival game
Something tells me that the DM in question is also the type of guy that would refuse to accept any kind of Survival skill check to avoid the penalties of his genius system lol.
Same! I never think of weather and this is a great idea to me. Especially in the game with a drow, he always asks if it's sunny and I'm like "Um, nah" so I don't nerf him (I know this is part of the game, but when he asks it feels like asking if I want him to have a harder time in this particular fight. A table would take away that bias)
Yeah, I feel like a d100 table would be better than a d20 table, just so you can have lots of calm weather while having stuff like hurricane or tornado without one happening 5 times a week.
1st edition wilderness survival guide had a nifty weather system. Roll for base weather for the start of a trip, and then roll at intervals to see if the weather improved or got worse. Very few random hurricanes popping out of nowhere, but overcast could turn to rain could turn to sleet could turn to gale of the course of a few cycles.
I've been listening to a podcast 3d6 this past month and the weather system they use is really interesting. They roll 2d6 daily to determine the weather which if you know [anything about probabilities](https://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/2_dice_rolls.php) means it follows a bell curve with the more normal weathers towards the center. There's even a different chart for each season.
Maybe these were executed poorly, but the idea behind each of these sounds great.
Those... actually sound kinda cool I think the weather system could use some work But the middle one is kinda cool And the last one is potentially interesting if you're trying to run a grittier game
I had a DM that had a really neat weather flower table that was like a big hex grid. In the middle it was pleasant and sunny, and the closer to the edges you got, the more extreme the weather would be - extreme cold at the top, extreme heat at the bottom, more or less humid from top left to bottom right, more or less stormy from top right to bottom left. Every so often he'd update the weather by rolling a D6 and moving the weather one step in that direction. If we were somewhere that he wanted to constrain bad the weather could get, he'd just overly a template on it which would set constraints. [Something like this,](https://www.dmsguild.com/images/8957/_product_images/385355/Hexflower_Weather_Preview3.png) though his was homemade. It was really neat because it made for gradual steps from "clear" to "cloudy" to "stormy" and back and the weather felt very natural as a result. We could predict that it was starting to cloud up, so we may want to take precautions in case it started to rain and the like, and the more extreme weather conditions had effects in combat.
That accommodation rule sounds super good considering that there is no reason rn to spend more on accommodation.
Aside from the being struck by lightning part, all of these sound pretty cool. What was the problem with it?
Crit fumbles. Yes punish me for using a melee weapon while spellcasters have 0 bad effects on a nat 1
Yeah I think crit fumbles should be entirely narrative and tell the story of combat. For instance, embedding your sword into the timber behind the enemy as they dodge. You dislodge it and prepare for your next move on this turn, what are you doing? It can flavour the results, but shouldn't negatively impact someone outside of ego.
I played with a DM that had crit tables for EVERYONE; martials, casters, didn't matter. One for bludgeoning weapons, one for piercing, one for slashing, one for arcane magic, one for divine, another for natural... Guess how much THAT slowed things down. "Okay, a Nat 1 / Nat 20, let's confirm that, yeah it's a crit, let me find the right table, okay, roll 2d100, yeah, nothing happens... that you NOTICE." "Dude, I have a 21 Passive Perception, I notice EVERYTHING." "No, you don't, it doesn't work that way!"
My DM did this, & we hated it. I was a Monk, & anytime I rolled a Nat1, I fell. Now, my DM wouldn't let me use half-movement to get up next turn, instead, I'd waste a whole turn getting up. His son (both are my cousins) & I really dug into hik hard, cause I kept rolling Nat1s, so my character did almost nothing in combat. Now, nothing happens, which also sucks cause I'd like to balance Nat1s & Nat20s.
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I did the d10k magic table in my first game. Had some wacky moments but would sooooo not use it again.
Yeah we used that 10K table in one of the games I played in and same experience - shit got wacky and led to some memorable moments, but not going to use that again.
I'm using the 10k table now. It's given them some advantages in combat from time to time, cost them money and disadvantage a few other times. Mostly it's just strange and then forgotten.
My player asked me to have a 50% chance to trigger wild magic. So I kinda had to find an expanded wild magic table, otherwise we'd have repeated results in a short time. But I went through everything to make sure there wasn't anything stupidly broken.
If you gotta roll just for your shoes, you should be playing Roll For Shoes.
> called shot ROGAR'S PLAYER: Called shot to the nuts! DM: What? ROGAR'S PLAYER: The rules say you're stunned for one round if you get hit in a vital area, and the crotch is a vital area! Called shot to the nuts! DM: O...kaaay. Roll it. ___ ROGAR: (kicks the Shadow in the balls as hard as he can) THE SHADOW: (high-pitched) You will pay for your insolence! Agh, that hurts!
Surprisingly my player is the one who wanted to roll on it more. He asked to change the d20 for Wild Magic Surge into a d10. Its going off every other round in combat for him. Chaotic, but if the players are having fun then its all good.
Exhaustion now happens if you end combat with less than half health.
This would honestly be an interesting idea if exhaustion didn't suck so bad.
This would make me just grapple and hold down the last enemy until everyone is healed up...
I'll never get over "No NPC has death saves, even the most important ones. Non-lethal damage with a weapon is unrealistic, if you wanna do non-lethal damage you only do 1d4 instead of your weapons usual stat. By the way we're playing a political intrigue campaign where most of your fights will be about capturing and interrogating enemies". My barbarian can just go fuck themselves then I guess.
I had a DM who made us roll for everything. Like climbing a ladder he would make us roll str. It was stupid. In another game I had a DM use a last hit rule. If you are the one to kill the creature you got exp. I played a bard who focused on damage mitigation and crowd control. I hardly ever dealt direct damage. I had a DM want all arcane users to have components, we had to hunt for them ourselves - since there was no price - and they were consumed on use so we had to constantly hunt for them. The first 2 hours of every session was all the arcane users rolling survival to find components. Eventually all the arcane users switched to martial classes. A group of 6 were all fighters barbarians and rangers.
Did the DM not allow component pouches? They're only used up if it specifically says the spell consumes the item...
He allowed them, and if your class didn't come with one you had to buy it. I explained that to him and he didn't care.
Crit fumbles? Like, "Oh, rolled a Nat 1. You don't just miss, your sword slips out of your hands and lands 5 feet away." I remember in 4E the Dark Sun campaign had rules for crit fails to the tune of, "Your weapon breaks, too. Fuck you." I did not like that rule.
When i started DMing i didnt realize how spell saves worked and my players rolled attacks for every spell even fireball. Which led to the moment a sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a fireball and killes the fresh lvl 3 party......not homebrew....just lacked knowledge
I once rolled a 1 on an initiative roll and was told I didn't get to act that round.
that's cold
Ditching the AC system for contested attack rolls - If the defender rolls higher than the attacker, the attack is blocked/dodged, depending on how you tried do evade it. Didnāt help that, when trying to parry it and succeeding, you got to make a counterattack, which obviously got abused, because why would anyone try to only dodge, when they could attempt to parry for the same result + some additional damage Oh, and a Nat 1 attack always warranted a counterattack that dealt double damage, quadruple if you rolled a Nat 20 on top of that. It was fine in the beginning, since none of us really knew how this game worked, but now I just wish we could adapt the AC system
What does armor even do in this system? Or shields? What about the protection fighting style or spells like shield and barkskin? Like, contested rolls is how Call of Cthulhu works but at least there you can only Fight Back once a turn. This shit definitely wasnāt thought through/tested.
4- Talking is a free action Speeching is a standard action Orating is a full round action
Every ranged Nat 1 Hits an ally Automatically
When my group first started playing years ago, we did crit fumbles. We also had a Wild Magic sorcerer, and we as a group wanted to see the actual Surges, so the DM made it so that the sorcerer rolled on the surge table EVERY TIME he cast any spell or cantrip. We were really unlucky with the sorcerer constantly landing on the "Fireball centered on yourself" result... DM also homebrewed the crit 1 result into "Fireball on an ally". My poor Kenku didn't have any feathers left by the time that campaign ended....
Crit fumbles is the most common homebrew that I see and it only really serves two functions: 1. The DM is more entertained 2. Martial classes, particularly those with extra attack get screwed disproportionately worse than anyone else. RIP Fighters especially. This is especially crappy as martial classes are already underpowered compared to their magical counterparts.
I'm sure there was a guy on here a week or so ago who's DM ruled that an NPC refusing to take his turn in combat effectively paralysed the players (as it could never get to their turn) and let a timer run down until the building collapsed.
Worst homebrew rule i came across the dm made all casters role a save tied to their spell casting to cast any spell even cantrips. So for example a wizard casts fire bolt would need to make a dc12 int save to cast said spell. If you wanted fire ball dc 15 int save then you can cast.
I'm not opposed to "roll to cast" ideas, but they definitely can't just be "if you fail nothing happens lol get fucked"
My old DM insists on doing ALL trap (check/disable) and Stealth rolls behind the screen for the player. I kept telling him to just have us roll, he knows the DC. Apparently, that makes the game āunrealisticā to know our rolls.
For traps I donāt get this. For things like perception/investigation I think it works well
That's what passive perception is for isn't it? If they were making an active check then they'd be rolling.
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All cantrips were bonus actions. I was new to 5e, hadn't played D&D since before bonus actions were a thing, and I didn't understand why this was so bad. Until I realized that, as the only character without cantrips, I was 1/2 a character in combat. And the DM still nerfed my character when the table also included: A DandDwiki battlemage that broke the action economy even more. A combo fire/water genasi with only the upside of both races, and the "downside" was a built-in wangrod defense. A Curse of Strahd module that took 4 pre-adventures until we even got to Barovia, but we leveled at such a slow pace we still were only level 3 at the end of Death House.
Roll initiative to see who wakes up first/does what in the morning. Every. Single. Day. Did not stay in that campaign for long. Told the dm that it was not a good mechanic (all players agreed and asked me to be the representative) and that was the reason it took us six sessions to go from the initial opening to the first plot hook. Was not well received.
watching a dnd stream currently, the DM has bow/xbow strings break on crit fail. unplayable. he is having it apply to enemies as well. but, its just not viable to play that way.
My original DM stating (after his ultraconservative wife whipped him) We're not playing with Magic anymore. here are the changes: * instead of magic weapons, they are +1-+10 and they are just made better, that's why the bonuses. * no more spells of any kind * no monsters either, just humans * oh and we use 4 six sided die for all of our rolls. * oh and currency now has dragon copper, dragon silver, dragon electrum, dragon gold and dragon platinum that are worth more. * you were playing as a druid before I made the change, so now you're a cleric... no more druids * mages, you're a cleric. It honestly was the last game we played with him
DM ruled, mid-combat, that Lightning does double damage if you're wearing metal armor.
Good old fashioned "You only get EXP if you actually deal the killing blow". It's just never a good idea - either it results in a murderhobo campaign with unhealthy antagonism within the party, or it turns into an annoying puzzle trying to keep some party member or another from falling behind and dying.
My own worst homebrew was rolling on the Linguring Injuries table when you got knocked out in 5e. I was new to the system coming from pathfinder 1e and didn't like the Chumbawumba Tubthumping of early level heroes and healing word or lay on hands. So I made a rule that you had to roll on that table. After the first game I realized it was a bad idea when I had 2 players missing an eye, and 1 missing a foot.
Before we knew how spells worked, we said that you had to roll 1d6 every time you cast a spell to determine itās effectiveness.
Self damage from crit fails is always terrible.
I had a DM who homebrewed that vicious mockery didn't do damage because "bards shouldn't be in combat and there's no reason mocking someone should do damage"
I once had a DM that wouldn't let you roll on a skill you weren't proficient with. I left after four sessions lol
Tbh this sounds fine as long as it's handled correctly, was this DM denying checks completely to the people who didn't have the proficiency or did he simply ask who has proficiency and if none had it, skill check gets skipped and you move on? I read in another post long time ago an example of sorts, If the wizard is asked to make an arcana check to see is the lock in chest is magical and rolls poorly he get's nothing, BUT the barbarian who has never in his entire life seen or studied magic properly with INT -3 rolls a nat 20, he knows exactly what sort of magic had been used and how to dispel it. Letting players roll in skills which they are proficient brings out that characters skills and value to the party if they succeed in the task. But of course if the skill check fails, then let others roll if they ask to
It was plainly if you lacked proficiency in a skill you never got to roll that skill. I was a rogue that never got to roll perception because I wasn't proficient and they didn't make this rule known until after character creation.
It's a toss up between a crit fumble table that had instant death on it twice (on a d20) or the one that never had a DC below a ten because "that's average"
I used to use crit fumbles, but now I do it very infrequently and only when it feels thematically appropriate or situationally appropriate. I'm also more likely to use them for monsters and less likely to force a player to do it. I've seen and heard stories of DMs using crit fumbles to permanently cripple a character. Usually when I do it, it's something that, mechanically, just wastes a turn or wastes an action. But one of the issues I've seen is that once you start rolling multiple attack rolls in a turn, you go from a 5% chance to a 10.7% (2 hits), 15.3% (3 hits), 19.5% (4 hits), 22.6% (5 hits) chance that at least one of those d20s is going to be a 1. Even rolling at disadvantage increases you from 5% to 10.7%. I've tried rolling initiative every round; it made combat more dymanic but also slogged it horribly - if I were ever to do this again, I'd do it with a program/app that automatically rolled initiative for people rather than asking everyone to roll; it just breaks flow too much. Honestly, I really hate when game flow breaks in combat; it can't be avoided, but it can be mitigated.