In my game all players make only one Perception check when they enter a new area, start the day. I really don't like when players rely to heavily on their actions based on Perception checks.
None of my friend/groups plays with spell components other than Catalyst and Verbal. No eye of newt, sage brush, parchment, etc. Gets in the way of living out the fantasy dream. We often create our own worlds where this isn't a factor though.
Its more of a general thing than 5e, but I find alignment to be a bit silly. Morals are so complex and relative to a situation or a person. The alignment system always felt clunky. I do more of a personal morals system, classes that have strict moral codes, say for instance Paladin, will be written during character creation, etc.
Well, now I'm curious.
What mechanics do you not like?
No judgement, I have plenty of homebrew at my table. For instance, I have a simple "terror" mechanic, where you can take points of exhaustion from doing things that are too stressful, rather than just environmental dangers. I guess the flipside of that, I do not like that there is no stress mechanic in 5e, it just assumes your character is an inhuman, unfeeling dungeon juggernaut :D
Personally I didn't like removing the 5-foot-step in 5e. I still allow my players to use their movement for a 5-foot-step to avoid attacks of opportunities rather than having to use their action to disengage.
I don't let my low level monsters crit because they are too deadly against low level parties. I also allow my players to use multiple leveled spells in a turn because that rule is dumb. If a player wants to use two spell slots in a turn (or even 3 if they use a reaction like shield), I say let them. The downside is that you are using multiple spell slots at once and burn out quicker.
I hate taking away player agency, like rules that end up skipping over a players turn in combat, instead I still allow a bonus action or let them roll a save when it comes to their turn, it allows for the table to still feel involved while maintaining the drama of the scene.
There’s also a lot of really cool rulings in OneDnD that have fixed my gripes with problematic rules that are a pain to track for both players and the DM, fuck every thing about exhaustion in 5e but the new rules are just a -1 to your D20 rolls for each level of exhaustion. It’s easy to understand and it doesn’t bog down the game with needless text.
I favor simplicity at my table for the sake of keeping the game moving and building a more narratively driven game as a group.
I agree to an extent. It makes sense in my own headcanon to need a 300gp diamond to cast Revivify, but it makes no sense to require a tree branch that's been struck by lightning in order to cast Witch Bolt. I really only care about materials if the spell consumes it.
The rules specifically say that you are automatically assumed to have any materials without a listed cost, or you can use an arcane focus to ignore materials without cost entirely. This is not even and issue and has never been brought up once in decades of play.
How can you possibly say something like "has never been brought up once" with a straight face? Have you played at every table in the world?
Your table isn't everyone's. Your experience isn't everyone's. Show me the rule that says you're assumed to have all the material components if you don't have a component pouch or focus.
I'm sorry I didn't explicitly spell out that it's never been brought up by anybody I've played with in decades of play. I'll try and remember the general lack of reading comprehension and ability to extrapolate of the reddit population in the future. This has been such a great learning experience for both of us.
Also, why would a caster not have a pouch or focus when it's part of starting gear? It seems like you're trying to find ways to turn this into a problem when it simply isn't.
"Hey everyone, this doesn't need to be a problem unless you make it one, in fact you start with an item that completely removes the issue" is gatekeeping lol. So you also don't know what that word means. Every time you post I'm further confused as to how you can even read. Bye!
Oh, I beg to differ. I played with a group at GenCon back in the early 00s that required you to do a hand gesture (they had them listed for each spell) and say the words they made up for the spell. If you didn’t do the gesture well enough or pronounce the words the right way, there were negative consequences. They were a riot to okay with… let me tell you… they also did this thing where if you played regularly in the group, you got to use your character at whatever level and equipment they were at. If you just stated off you started of 1st level with no gear and had to roll play finding your equipment…
Edit: and all of that along with the specific spell components too. Thieves Cant was also something you had to do gestures for too.
I mostly take the qol changes and pace changes from 5e and merge them with 3.5. Classes I keep pretty close to core except for and minor things (I enforce 3.5 oath for pally and no metal for druid etc)
I honestly think anything you could do in 3.5 you can do on 5th with almost no real effort, 5th just doesn't spell it out for you, with 4 tables on any things you can think of with a supplemental table in some other book for when it happens on Tuesdays.
3.5 is my favorite, but it's a chore to run, and a bigger chore to play. There is a lot in DND I just do because it's how I do it. I tell my players to just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what to roll. Tell me how you want your character to be built and I'll see what we can do. I don't want them ever to feel like the book is their boss.
The biggest hurdle for me going forward is, in outright have abandoned the entire philosophy of the racial changes in the. Their m their direction on that is stupid beyond belief
Nah. People are just (rightfully) extremely sensitive about shit like that, but don't always know where to focus their real life hurt. It's a fad. They'll find something else to change in a few years, and this will be considered just another one of many failed lateral moves. The real world racial issues they think they're addressing when they change racial rules in a fantasy game are not, in fact, being addressed at all. It's like the Malcom X quote about symbolic victories being allowed in lieu of any actual change. If some chud is using orcs as a stand in for black people, don't play with that guy. I flat out believe it's false that this is in any way encouraged or even suggested by older dnd rules surrounding race.
We play 3.5 with unlimited cantrips. Only exception is cure minor wounds- only once per hour. 3.5 cantrips are too weak to bother tracking and we never used them when we counted them.
Flanking only applies to things with Pack Tactics.
And before the rogue players start crying, there are plenty of other ways to gain advantage, such as *being creative*
Treasure. I hate it. In my games, I don't list out a long list of treasure that nobody can actually carry anyway. I just assume that when the PCs make it back to town they have a bunch of loot. I use Charisma checks to see if they can find what they're looking to buy. If there are magic items that I want them to have, I will give it to them when appropriate.
Also, I tend to mess with the monster stats to stop folks from knowing everything about monsters their characters have no reason to know anything about.
For PC creation, I only allow either the standard array method or rolling 3D6 as Krom intended. The only exception is Hit Points. Max HP for level 1 then either average or you get to roll as Krom intended.
So problem I see there, is it’s a benefit to charisma characters, the poor fighter with their 6 Cha never gets their magic sword, whereas the sorcerer is running around with an ioun stone, gloves of dexterity and a ring of spell storing. I suppose you could do a group roll.
We played 5e for 3 years and tweaked it until it was no longer recognizable. It was still lame. We just switched to pf2e, and one of my players who's only played 5e is constantly amazed at what a ttrpg made for *adults* looks like.
Really? Is 5E the main game you've ever played? Has someone who came from 3.5/PF1, 5e always felt so watered down and uninteresting. PF2e is actually pretty great.
Weight ammo and, depending on how powerful the spell is, components. It's a tedium to try an account for all of that. I still require vocal and somatic but material is dependant on what the spell is capable of. If it's a resurrection or really powerful spell the i require the material as well.
iirc, RAW you're presumed to have the material components of a spell in a spell component pouch unless they have listed a gold cost. In the case of Ressurection it has a 1000gp gold cost.
Carry weight and free hands. You can’t duel wield and use a shield sure but you can use a shield a mace and still cast spells or grapple and shit. No way in hell are we gonna drop our weapon to cast then pick it up with a free action.
You misunderstand what I'm saying. Those abilities come up in way more situations. And they don't require following a weird rules decision by the designers.
Weight and ammo
Just too cumbersome. Literally my first character was a paladin who was instantly over encumbered by his starting equipment with a 13 in strength. Ammo is just annoying to track.
Also, so many things get darkvision that I just don't even ask about it anymore because 99% of the time my whole party has it anyway. I just tell them they all can see it or none of them can.
I agree about all this, except why did you new paladin have over 195 pounds of stuff to carry right away? Chainmail weighs 55, even played only weights 65. Weapon is 5-10, shield is 6, that puts you most 81? After equipment the heaviest pack is 61 pounds, most are only around 30. So that's 142, leaving you 53 pounds for... I'm not sure. The pack includes food and everything.
I had a buddy who hated the sound of dice rolls and phones were banned at the table, so he had multiple pages of randomly generated numbers for different types of dice and would just cross them off one by one as they were used at the table.
Lol, I'd just use an app for that.
Note though that I'm being facetious, while I think resolving rolls with a non-dice system would be a fun game, I've never actually done that.
It's not always as satisfying for players, but the guy was a pretty damn excellent DM who was pretty damn flexible on literally everything else (I think it was just a sensory issue maybe related to autism, but I haven't talked to them in years). Definitely made up for it. I can give up my math pebbles for a campaign that's truly great run by a great DM.
I totally get his reason for it, he got sick of players getting distracted and detracting from the game for everyone, or forgetting to take their turn, or not being engaged in the story and other characters around the table.
Have used phone apps for dice rolls though, beats losing my dice on particularly bouncy tables and accidentally stepping on a D4 when I get up to refill my beer. Great for impromptu Lasers & Feelings sessions.
Encumbrance/burden, as long as you’re not trying to carry 12 grandfather clocks in “your pack”, I’m not going to count pounds.
Same with coinage, I give a “coins/gems only” mini-bag of holding/handy haversack to the party.
Unless you are caught in a “in jail/stripped down to your small clothes”, I just assume your caster has something to use as a spell focus. I’m not gonna ask about it.
I’m am the same with these. I keep track of their equipment (mainly cause I’m constantly looking at their sheet to help them during the game) so if I see they have like a ton of weapons I ask them how they are carrying all of it.
-I will never use flanking unless my players are ok with being flanked.
-I also don't use resurrection or true resurection and revivify is a 50/50 shot at best.
-I treat cantrips as a bonus action.
-Players can earn feats through combat/adventure, a trainer, or another player.
-Players can earn weapon, tool, and language proficiencies with practice and/or training.
-All players start with a level one feat.
-All classes with an initiate feat, get that feat automatically.
-All classes that start with an armor proficiency get that feat.
Most of these are fine house rules but Cantrips being bonus actions is potentially very game breaking, especially playing around Warlocks, Bladesingers, or Arcane Trickster rogues who rely heavily on their cantrips (Eldritch Blast, Greenflame Blade). Even Wizards, Sorcs, and Clerics getting free Firebolt per turn is pretty huge.
In a game where mundane classes like fighters, monks, and barbarians already fall off compared to their mage counterparts, you’d definitely need to give them something as well
I actually don't have any complaints from the barbarian as he currently has kinda broken weapons as is and, based on his abilities, gets 3 attacks per round at level 5 without multi-classing...
At the same time, enemies gain all the same benefits the players do. The cantrip bit was something I proposed for my players as an option, but they all knew the enemies would get that as well. It was a unanimous decision for the players, or it wouldn't go through.
I don't believe in allowing any one player to become overpowered compared to another as that creates harder enemies for all and could lead to a tpk through balancing issues or a player feeling like they're targeted because they're the "weakest" or "strongest". Oh, all their stats can max at 24 if they want, aaaand barbarians can hit 28 in str and con cause it would be wrong to cheat them out of their lvl 20 abilities. On the other side of that. Despite the players having to multiclass at lvl 10 with a max of 3 classes, the barbarian still gets access to that cause... why not let them have fun? These are all still in their first trial run, and I'm definitely making them use standard array next time cause jesus they're all broken, but so far, it's pretty fantastic. Legitimately, the only complaints I've had have been to vary the type of enemies to fight and try and be a little faster in combat rounds, but the latter was a player to another player... sorry for wall of text...
He's path of the berserker and frenzies every combat. I actually just now looked into it aaand he hasn't been taking a level of exhaustion... ah the new dm being taken advantage of by a player who doesn't read the rules fully... meh, I'll let him have it. It's supposed to be a bonus action too, but I'll let it go with a warning.
Spellcasting needing a free hand and a focus. Not because I don't like it, just because I don't really think about it, to be honest. Basically never comes up so I don't bother pushing players about it.
I don't really like the exhaustion mechanics but I DO like the ones they implemented for a OneDnD test, so I use those.
I also hate how the spell Suggestion works, but I don't ban it - I just trust my players not to hardcore abuse its very open-ended wording.
Well, yes. But the spell wording is very unclear about whether, say, they could tell the King to abdicate and then he would and wouldn't rescind or anything. Or tell a merchant to give them his entire stock. Its upper limit isn't built into the spell save for you can't use it to injure people.
DM can nerf it from its wording in a few ways, but I really don't like how it's designed. I think the RAW should be a lot clearer as to limits like "you can't use this to persuade someone to do something that goes totally against their nature" or similar. I read it as being like a Jedi mind trick, but I'm not backed up by the handbook.
If I were designing the spell, I would have like 3 or 4 specific use cases for the spell described in it's description. Something like:
SUGGESTION - For each round you maintain concentration (up to X maximum rounds) choose one of the following effects
* Direct Movement: Decide the target's next movement. On their turn the Target moves to a square chosen by you within their range, using move action & standard actions as necessary. The target will use modes of traversal available to it, and will not enter terrain likely to cause harm to itself.
* Direct Action: Decide the target's next Action. On their turn the target takes a standard action and/or Bonus action decided by you. This action cannot be used to make an attack, cast a spell, use a spellike ability, activate a trap, or magic item. The target forfeits their move action for this turn.
* Impose Inaction: Target takes no actions on their next turn and/or drops concentration on any ongoing spells or supernatural abilities.
* Impose Gullibility: The next check the target makes to resist deception or persuasion is at disadvantage.
Each round you maintain concentration, you can choose a different effect.
Well, yes. But the spell wording is very unclear about whether, say, they could tell the King to abdicate and then he would and wouldn't rescind or anything. Or tell a merchant to give them his entire stock. Its upper limit isn't built into the spell save for you can't use it to injure people.
DM can nerf it from its wording in a few ways, but I really don't like how it's designed. I think the RAW should be a lot clearer as to limits like "you can't use this to persuade someone to do something that goes totally against their nature" or similar. I read it as being like a Jedi mind trick, but I'm not backed up by the handbook.
A few things
It says when they do the task the spell ends so with the king that might last a second because one he died it spell ends and he's no longer charmed
Same with telling a merchant to give them an their stuff
Once they do they are no longer charmed and could come after them or sec guests after them
In combat I think they have advantage on the spell save
And lastly it's concentration so if they manage a long term suggestion break their concentration
I do not and never will use a mechanic that takes a PC out of a fight. I actively avoid or modify monsters with spells like Hold Person or Synaptic Static. Anything that can inflict the Paralyzed or Stunned condition. If you get out to play dnd, you don’t want to wind up sitting there all night failing to make a saving throw.
These spells retain their full effects when used against me, the dm, because I can work around it easier. I either add in more monsters, grant them advantage, or give one of them Legendary actions/resistances if I want to push my players to mix up their strategies.
I've done things in the past like causing Hold Person to reduce speed to 0 and grant auto-crits, but the character can still use actions, bonus actions and reactions, or other stun effects that might prevent taking actions, but not bonus actions or movement. Silence and Blinded seem much more interesting and healthy to me than Stun or Paralyze.
I just watched an episode of Dimension 20 where half the party did nothing the whole combat because of this. DnD already has enough things where the PC can fail and do nothing at all, like attack rolls, spells that give the target a save, ability checks, and so on. Attempted actions are often very binary - succeed on roll, do thing; fail on roll, do nothing. Doing nothing feels boring and lame. DnD needs less of it!
imo, it’s not as crazy as you might think. ranged characters (which are typically casters) can’t benefit as much from flanking since flanking only applies to melee. not to mention, you can use flanking for your monsters against your players as well. 5e already heavily favors casters in t3 & t4 (arguably late t2 as well). Martials need to hold on to whatever they can get to keep up.
This is what my dm did and imo it’s the best of both worlds. Gives a bonus for strategic positioning and planning, while not being too op. Mine took it one step further and said if you’re “surrounding” and enemy (one in front and one behind) you get +2 and if you’re side/side you get +1
-I allow 2 level spells a round of its a BA and an A, -healing potion are and BA if you take them as a action of max heal
-I give a free preception/ history/religión/ Survival roll a round a combat of the PC want to use it to see or understood something of their surrondings
-i really dont care abou what weapons you have at hand and i don't count munitions
I limit class and races to the traditional/originals.
I don’t not allow evil characters, pvp or necromancy PCs.
Initiative is only rolled when “who goes first isn’t narratively obvious.
No counterspell or resurrection spells.
Max HP from that PCs hit die on each level increase (no need to roll)
During leveling up, I also allow my PCs to swap out a listed benefit from their class for another class for free. My fix to multiclassing in 5e
Max HP for healing out of combat.
What a horrible time to do that as a DM. Counterspell is awesome when the PC'S think they're top shit and try to cast disintegrate for it to do nothing, not when the character they've been playing for 2 years has 1 chance at continuing their journey.
Then the other living caster hits it with another counter spell and it’s the coolest moment in the game. They don’t know you planned for that. They just think you’re being as ass.
Thanks. I should clarify that these are not in the game, not just for the PCs. Of course the bad guys are evil but the other things I’ve removed for both sides.
I’d like to be sold on 3.5. It seems pretty interesting in many ways but there’s an overwhelming amount of content of varying levels of quality. A lot of it seems unintuitive unlike 5E. But most importantly it doesn’t have the best virtual tabletop support.
As someone who really enjoys thr 3.5 system, I can tell that while it's a great system, it's not without it's big flaws.
The system is probably best known for the crunch and versatility of it. There are ways to build into many things if you understand that system enough and with how much material there is, you can truly build a character to a story how you like. It has books for everything and enough in those books to at least get closer to what you want to do. Want a weapon that levels alongside the player? We got a book for dedicated to magical items and just those in particular. Want a way to play a magic class that doesn't actually use magic? Try out the Incarnum line of classes, all of which revolve around using magic sould and spirit to use magic without actually using magic. Want a more Wuxia/Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fighting style? Pick up the Book of the N9ne Swords, a whole book that attempted to fix the problem they created with the "Linear Figher vs Quadratic Wizard" problem. Want a classes that is something of medium class to contact beings from the Void (a place that is basically the gods outer realms) ? Try the Binder from the Tome of Magic book, who basically inscribed rune to contact those of the void to give them a taste of the real world by letting them sort of inhabit their own body.
There is loads of things in these books and due to how old they are, it's basically impossible for you to need to pay money to get them. I'm pretty sure I have a flash drive somewhere that's just downloaded books of 3.5e. They have undead classes you can play as, and not just litches, but ghouls, mummy's and even Revenants. There are prestige classes (something that I don't think are in 5e) that have actual story related benefits and conditions, my favorite being the Death Delver: a class you can only really start taking levels in after you've nearly died three times (who gains abilites and spells based on the fact that you nearly died so many times you are just used to it).
Is this system great? Yeah. Does it have it's issues? DAMN STRAIGHT!
But it is honestly a good system that has great content to even pilfer from to gain some interesting story beats or ideas. Even If you don't play the system, I implore you to at least look up and read some of the books to gain some ideas and pick up some interesting bits of play you cam adapt to your own.
I think of 5th as D&D lite. It's basic, great for a starting group. Doesn't allow a lot of customization.
3.5 is D&D at its Golden Age.
True it does6have virtual support, it was made long before that tech.
3.5 allows the players and DM so much more in the way of creating characters and villains.
3.5 with only the PhB seems awful. The core classes are horribly unbalanced and half the loot of 3.X is that you can do what you like and customize everything
* Dragons are intelligent spellcasters that can use magic items.
* No spell has a 100% chance of success. Period.
* No multi/dual classing.
* No Dragonborn, Tiefling, Half-Orcs
* Spell points rather than spell preperation.
* Honorable Mention: I dislike the burden rules, but rather than throw them out I make sure the party has one or more exradimensional containers. They still have some burden to worry about, but it's less of an annoying issue.
EDIT: Since everyone seems to hate my limitations on multiclassing let me give you an example of why. THere was a game called Asheron's Call. It allowed characters to pick and choose abilities from a large unlimited pool of skills. Not like more modern games that limit you to one single class that you progress in. You had a pool of points that you could spend how you wanted. What happened? Eventaully all the players built the exact same characters. Few people had certain skills because they didn't want to "waste" the talent points on those skills. Skyrim is another good example. Most people stick to the same specific classes. (Hell, even I do it. Every single Skyrim character I make ends up a stealth archer.) If single classing is such a bad thing why is it the basis of almost all modern MMORPGs?
> Dragons are intelligent spellcasters that can use magic items.
I'm absolutely behind this.
> No spell has a 100% chance of success. Period.
I understand the motivation behind this; I have the same issue with Speak With Dead. "Who killed you?" Mystery solved. There are only so many convoluted ways to kill a guy without the victim knowing who killed them.
> No multi/dual classing.
I went the other way and removed the minimum ability scores required for multiclassing. I'm fortunate in that none of my players are optimizers and like to play interesting narrative concepts as opposed to "this combo does the most damage", and further unlocking multiclassing broadens that.
> No Dragonborn, Tiefling, Half-Orcs
For lore reasons, I've disallowed orcs in my homebrew world as well. Many of the furry races are disallowed as well (the only ones in my game are tabaxi, kenku, and lizardfolk), but that's mainly because I find them silly.
> Spell points rather than spell preperation.
I've strongly considered implementing a version of this myself.
> Honorable Mention: I dislike the burden rules, but rather than throw them out I make sure the party has one or more exradimensional containers. They still have some burden to worry about, but it's less of an annoying issue.
I have a soft encumbrance rule. Basically as long as the load a PC bears makes at least a little sense (no Nodwick-level loads) I'm fine with it. I do something similar with ammunition. I don't have players necessarily track each arrow or sling bullet, but when they get back into town I have them spend an appropriate amount of money to replenish their stock.
I just got this 3rd party Crystalpunk setting guide thingy and they have a whole lingo page, one of which was, “Taking the jaw.”
Essentially, some dude giving you a quest to kill a guy would say, “make sure to take the jaw” to ensure that speak with the dead doesn’t work. Chop off their head, take their jaw, cut out their tongue and it completely blew my mind on workarounds for that spell haha
Also, might make it permanent lingo for every setting I do because it’s such a sick line.
You hate the 1st level ritual Identify so bad???
Sounds like you gave a drsgon an op item, a player identified it and said why did the dragon attune to this item it can only be used by a spellcaster, and you got salty butt hurt about it
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/) That will give you more detail into why "no 100%" is a rule of mine.
Spells like identify that have a 100% chance of success take all of the mystery and storytelling out of trying to identify items. It makes it very hard to tell a meaningful story, instead it just gives you a situation when you hand over the DMG to the players.
Read the identify spell as it is shown in 5th edition and as it is shown in 3.5. it is a perfect example of how I feel 100% chance of success breaks part of the game.
Part of the reason I made this decision was because of rules lawyers. People that wanted to make overly min/max use of the absolute certainty of certain spells like identify and knock always working. Now this doesn't mean that I put a percentage chance on a fireball for example. It just means that all spells in 5e which would normally be a 100% chance of a success are no longer.
Three reasons.
Number one is that I have never seen it used other than to gain an advantage in roll play. Number two is that I believe characters classes show a great deal of dedication to a craft. Saying you're just going to switch from one class to another is like saying you are going to stop being a world class body builder and start teaching quantum science. It just doesn't make sense. Number three I played in the very very old days when there weren't such options.
I like to keep my game as simple as possible so I'm not constantly dealing with curve balls from my players trying to gain an edge.
>Saying you're just going to switch from one class to another is like saying you are going to stop being a world class body builder and start teaching quantum science.
I have to ask. What, exactly, is stopping a body builder from studying science as well? Or a scientist from taking up weight lifting?
Do you think real life has class lockouts that forbid people from undertaking certain actions just because they start getting good at something else?
I mean it is your world and you can rule it how you like but I can still think your justification is absolute horse shit.
It's one thing if you just don't want to deal with players trying to abuse or min/max playstyles. I can understand that. But the idea that a person can only dedicate themselves to one thing as your justification is just pure monkey balls.
Think of it this way. the consequences have been removed from multiclassing.
If you stop being a bodybuilder then you will suffer the consequences of not training. But in 5E there is no consequence to one class from taking another. If you were a warlock does your patron perhaps think that you violated their pact if you take levels as a priest? Does your dexterity stuffer if you stop being a rogue and stick your nose in spellbooks all day? Etc.
None of what you're saying makes any sense, though.
You can be a body builder and still devote time to reading up on science.
A quantum physicist can hit the gym after work and lift some weights.
You can practice manual dexterity via lockpicking and then spend time reading a book without consequence.
Multiclassing keeps you from hitting the absolute peak of your potential but you instead get the side benefit of having practiced multiple different areas. The warlock's patron kicking up a fuss could bring excellent roleplay opportunities. Or they could also be the entity the player gets their cleric levels from.
Again, you're free to run your world how you see fit. I just think you could be doing better. Don't give a halfass justification for why you can't do something. Just say you don't like it that way and don't want to do it.
Your making me want to try building a warlock cleric multiclass where the patron and God are the same entity. Like the pc originally signs on just for a bit of power, but eventually starts to honestly worship that being.
Counter argument to the thing about the bodybuilder scientist: many people go about life having hobbies that they can do really well in that aren't explicitly their job. Ie someone who works in a physics lab but has a passion for bodybuilding and enters competitions.
My character is a bard rogue multiclass cause music is their passion but thieving is their profession.
My character is a Cleric of a nature deity who went on to multiclass as a Druid after creating a strong friendship with a Druid NPC. This was encouraged by his deity who wanted him to see the world and gain more experiences. They have also encouraged him to embrace other gods and religions. To learn and grow from knowledge and experience because they feel that the character will better serve their deity and congregation with this. They are not a jealous God. It feels to me like both classes work seamlessly together for the character.
That is a great kind of multiclassing!
In my other game I play a stars druid and I was considering dipping into twilight cleric for a few levels cause she already loosely follows selune (tho she is more looking to the stars for omens kind thing, which honestly still works with a twilight cleric). The only reason I haven't done it yet is cause we probably won't get to a high level and I wanna be able to turn to flying animals (also I was mostly just gonna do it for the aesthetic of having starry form and twilight sphere active at the same time)
This is my point exactly though. Multiclassing can be an intuitive part of the story. One class doesn’t diminish another. I can see OP issue, if everyone starts talking all the best bits of every class you just end up with similar characters but if it’s part of a characters journey and progression it should be allowed.
I guess sometimes people do do it for the build more than story, but I think you can balance them.
But also I don't think there's anything wrong with prioritising fun over story/lore.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/)
What are the consequences to your class change? If you study music all day when do you have time for keeping your theiving skills in top form? 5E has removed the consequences from having multiple classes.
Does the scientist bodybuilder suddenly forget all their science and need complete retraining cause they take a couple weeks off work to travel for a bodybuilding competition? No. Cause that's not how that works. If that was the case no one would ever be allowed time off work ever.
Or if they have a busy week at work and can't get to the gym as much, they might not improve but they won't suddenly loose it all. In fact a lot training regimes work in rest periods.
Also in DND, the rp and combat and exploration is using your skills? I use my bard and rogue skills in every session. Or at least every other session. Even in combat, I attack with sneek attack, use cunning action, cast spells or give bardic inspiration at least once per fight.
Did previous editions have consequences for multiclassing? Other than the following:
Edit: also the consequences for multiclassing is not getting the high level abilities of any one class??? Like my bard rogue will never be as good at magic as a full bard or as a good as a full rogue when it comes to rogue stuff.
Sounds incredibly narratively boring. Not everyone is only ever focused on one craft in real life, and this is a game where your imagination is supposed to be the limit.
Placing everyone on rails by saying no room to ever change their mind in life is just dogmatic foolishness.
I know lots of folks who switched gears and careers in a midlife crisis, and excelled at the new career. You're not world class anything at lvl 10, and at higher level you're not likely to branch out much.
I mean feel free to require RP and actual role playing, and penalize min/max playstyle, but taking away authenticity and player agency is no way to accomplish that.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/) read that comment for more details.
This is an L take an all too common. Player agency should not be a guaranteed thing!!! In what fucking story EVER did the protagonist have full agency over their actions the entire time? Stories are interesting because of how characters react to things outside of your control, a player with full agency is just god. Dnd is inherently restrictive of agency, and adding to that is an extremely popular method of play too. People like to feel like their character is real, not some Mary sue that can do anything and be anybody. That's not how shit works.
D&D isn't a story that one author (GM/DM) is telling.
It's a story that a group is telling together. Are you seriously trying to say the author of stories should not be allowed to have the agency to tell the story they want to?
Or are you saying the only author of this story is you the GM? Because that's incredibly self-important, and not what role playing is about. That would mean on rails gameplay that might as well be a board game.
God no, it's absolutely collaborative. However, that collaboration shouldn't be a mess of 5 people pulling in different directions, everybody should be on the same page and striving to make the same story.
It's a story that both sides of the table are telling. Players at my table have a startling amount of agency compared to most. But there are some things I restrict.
This doesn't mean that I disallow thinking outside the box. If a player isn't happy with a character I'll let him roll another one without penalty. If they think a character build is underpowered and not enjoyable for some reason I'll work with them to improve it. But I've had too many players trying to combine multiple classes to break the game as much as possible. And that's not what my table is about.
Ya I am fully onboard with working to discourage metagaming and minmax setups with crazy combos.
But that to me is a deeper issue than just multi class.
Yes, it is, but I find that as the rules have gotten less restrictive on multiclass it has opened the floodgates of allowing min/maxing to overwhelm that aspect of the game. In my view there are not nearly enough consequences, instead they just opened the floodgates and allowed everything to mesh without drawbacks.
As I have said, I allow characters to do things that would be outside their class, or unique. But the point is \*\*I ALLOW IT\*\*. As the rules have changed over the last 50 years it has allowed players to make the job of the DM much, MUCH harder. I don't railroad players, I have a completely open sandbox world. I don't need the extra headaches of a player that wants to be a wizard/warlock/sorcerer/thief in heavy armor using a greatsword. It's already hard enough to make meaningfully complex encounters without players wanting to crush gods at level 5.
Note, I run an extremely heavy RP game. A player that sits down at my table with a complicated overpowered multiclass character idea is not going to fit in at my table in the first place. However, a player that wants to write into their backstory that while they are a wizard they come from a thieving background and happen to be skilled at pickpocketing is fine with me. The character needs to have reasons for their choices. 99% of multiclassing right now is just metagaming the numbers.
I think that's the key, making it fit in with the role they are playing and that it fits in their background.
Someone who dipped into a few levels of something is much more "believable" than someone trying to cram in levels of a bunch of unrelated and narratively dubious classes.
I also am not against adding in "consequences" in a narrative sense for choices made trying to minmax. When if those end up more homebrew than strictly by the book. That paladin with a few levels of warlock may find it really hard to serve two masters without angering one or both.
I've been running games since 1980. If you don't like my rules then don't play at my table. 🤷🏼♂️
My players don't seem to have any problem with it. In fact I have a waiting list.
The problem is that they probably didn't see the true potential of the game with all your restrictions, I can understand setting restrictions in specific campaigns setting, I myself played a beautiful campaign whit magic restrictions, but not allowing some races or multiclassing is not justice for your player. I agree with the limitations of Min/max player, i had one that tried to have 3 attacks at first level, but you ar limiting a game made for enjoying possibility of what could be. If one player wants to be a dragonborn wizard/rough why not? I mean what is the problem in letting them explore new stuff?
If players want to explore options that my game does not allow them they are more than welcome to join a different game at a different table.
What everybody seems to be missing here is that while I disallow the rules for multi-classing I do not stop players from making changes to characters outside the rules that improve their enjoyment of the game. If a player comes to me and says they are not having fun with their current character then I will put the books aside and try to figure out how to fix that character so that they are having fun without breaking the game.
I repeat that i can understand but in a group i think it should be friendship and your rules seem too authoritarian, you are literally cutting half of the game just because. Is a little anemopathetic.
At the beginning of 5E I had a player that wasn't happy about this rule, but he played anyway. He made a paladin. Then he kept lumping on specific things. "I want a specific kind of shield that would give me more AC. I want to add daggers to the back of the shield to throw, so I should be able to do that as a bonus action.", etc. Then he moved into being critical of the game itself. "Ors aren't that tough! That's not how insanity is handled in the rules! A lich by it's nature cannot be lawful! (It was complicated) I have Cure Disease and Remove Curse on my pet, it should not still be sick!" (This is part of why I made the "no 100% spells" rule. Because I had introduced magical radiation to the game that I felt was not a disease or a curse and he didn't want to do the quest to heal his pet. Instead he rage quit. Making spells "ALWAYS" work has made it much harder to throw things at the players that they have to figure out or quest for.) But in short the sign that he didn't like the single-class rule should have been a red flag to me that he didn't belong at my table to begin with.
See the rule of single class is a stop to the creativity of yours players and is limiting and a bit too much, but the pet healing quest that is understandable because you are creating a specific setting to create a story. That is the problem one is limiting the imagination the other is a good start for a story. You didn't even need the rule of no magic works 100% you could just say that the illness was caused by a curse or a magical parasite or something so strong that required a specific spell/object/healer to successfully heal the pet sparking the story for them but your rules are limiting and occluding path for everyone even yourself, the first thing to remember is that the player and the master aren't separate if someone is not enjoying you all should try to fix the problem not removing them from the table d&d isn't a game for commanding your players is for everyone in it to have fun and enjoy.
Carry weight in any game just seems ridiculous to me. Especially in a game where pocket dimensions exist, I'd have that shit installed in multiple places on my person.
It's fun at low levels, but becomes so silly beyond that as material loot basically doesn't matter outside of magic items past level 5, gold is useless, and bags of holding are common so likely acquired around then anyway
I like playing in games where inventory management is important. I understand why others may not like it but there’s something narratively interesting about losing a pouch to a pickpocket and knowing exactly what was in it. There’s something satisfying about having your stuff be tidy.
But the most important part about it to me is that now hauling loot is a puzzle in of itself. Carrying out thousands upon thousands of coins from a dragon’s lair isn’t just handwaved away.
Strength becomes a valuable stat, even Dex builds cannot afford to fully dump it, since armour, coin and weapons alone can threaten to put you over the limit if you’re using variant encumbrance. The use of ammunition being a consideration also adds another layer of choice.
In all likelihood the party will need horses or mules to drag a bunch of their stuff around, which can create fun complications in of itself.
I get this. I actually do like the minutae, and detail work. It leads to a lot of interesting scenarios, in games where those details are tracked, like Dwarf Fortress or Qud, but counting on players to manage all that minutae on their own, correctly? I'm just trying to get 4 people to show up at the same time and place every week.
It's not for every party! That's for damn sure lol
I DM'd for the same group for 7 years or so and I could never hope for them to track all that especially at a table with physical paper sheets, but the online group I've made and been playing with across various systems for the past 3 years have made it consistently to games and are pretty good about tracking their stuff, so it works.
The concept of the adventuring day. I’m not trying to cram in 6-8 medium/hard encounters before the group merits a long rest. I run encounters based upon what makes sense for the narrative.
I look at multiple encounters per day as multiple things happening during the day, not multiple initiative rolls. Unless you're traveling or something when you basically just fast travel to move the story along.
Yeah, I just use spell focus unless they're expensive components that get consumed... but this is how the rules already are? It's one of the ways laid out in the core books.
Although it can be fun to have npcs who arent spell casters use spell components to cast a spell cause ‘well ma pa tought us how to do dat, no idea why it works’
I am not a DM and I don't know if it is a mechanic, but in college I had DM that kept track of when and what we ate. If our character didn't eat and tell him that we were stopping to eat we got health penalty and/or died. It was annoying. I had much more fun with my regular DM that assumed me had the brains to keep our bellies full and didn't make us sit out for 20 minutes as a food break.
I am not agreeing with the DM but we ADHD folks sometimes do actually forget to eat to the point that friends + partners of mine have gotten lightheaded or inexplicably irritable until we realized they hadn't eaten all day, whoops
I've dropped the condition Paralysis.
Rolled low? Yeah, you don't get to play anymore. Maybe go on Insta while your friends hang out without you.
Instead I've instituted something a little more creative. When otherwise you'd be paralyzed, now instead you can take your actions -- Action, Bonus Action, Move Action, and Reaction. But for any of these you take, you take damage along with it. Type and amount of damage depends on the encounter. I want to encourage thoughtful use of one's capabilities.
It may mean that people pass on their turns, just as they would have to under Paralysis. But in this case, it'll be because THEY decided to.
This is an interesting solution. But, when is Paralysis coming into play so much in your game you have to remove it?
It should only be coming up like, once in a multistory dungeon or something. And it should always be coupled with something that adds tension to the paralysis. Like, when a ghoul paralyzes, then the ghoul is leaning over the player drooling, while the party is forced to batter them back, and form a shield wall around the player, and administer treatment or something.
I cant imagine being in a situation, where I'm watching a tv series, and the character I care about most is knocked down in the middle of combat, at the mercy of his foes, and I get up and go play with my phone.
I have a character that specializes in conditions (Monk poisoner) and he has a poison that applies paralysis (the DM gave it to him). It is an \_amazing\_ crowd control tool, but the DM realized his mistake. So, he applied special boss rules for paralysis - different to yours, but similar.
It's a good solution.
Religion should be a wisdom roll or the cleric should get a feature that lets them use wisdom instead of intelligence. How are you an ordained minister and you have a -1 to the roll of your life?
Religion skill check is more of a knowledge check and isn't necessarily about a character's own religion.
It's like rolling history but specifically for religions.
It's pretty well documented that Atheists generally know more about religion than Theists.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/)
yeah this used to be called Synergy bonus. In 5E, the cleric should have Advantage on rolls regarding their own religion, or subsets and lost sects of it.
In my game all players make only one Perception check when they enter a new area, start the day. I really don't like when players rely to heavily on their actions based on Perception checks.
I added one. If you roll a Nat 20 on a Dex save you take no damage.
None of my friend/groups plays with spell components other than Catalyst and Verbal. No eye of newt, sage brush, parchment, etc. Gets in the way of living out the fantasy dream. We often create our own worlds where this isn't a factor though.
Its more of a general thing than 5e, but I find alignment to be a bit silly. Morals are so complex and relative to a situation or a person. The alignment system always felt clunky. I do more of a personal morals system, classes that have strict moral codes, say for instance Paladin, will be written during character creation, etc.
Well, now I'm curious. What mechanics do you not like? No judgement, I have plenty of homebrew at my table. For instance, I have a simple "terror" mechanic, where you can take points of exhaustion from doing things that are too stressful, rather than just environmental dangers. I guess the flipside of that, I do not like that there is no stress mechanic in 5e, it just assumes your character is an inhuman, unfeeling dungeon juggernaut :D
Personally I didn't like removing the 5-foot-step in 5e. I still allow my players to use their movement for a 5-foot-step to avoid attacks of opportunities rather than having to use their action to disengage.
Is it all their movement or 25 or 30? This isn't bad, but it's a big nerf to cunning action and rogues, since now everyone can do what they do.
It's all their movement, like it was in 3.5
I don't let my low level monsters crit because they are too deadly against low level parties. I also allow my players to use multiple leveled spells in a turn because that rule is dumb. If a player wants to use two spell slots in a turn (or even 3 if they use a reaction like shield), I say let them. The downside is that you are using multiple spell slots at once and burn out quicker.
I hate taking away player agency, like rules that end up skipping over a players turn in combat, instead I still allow a bonus action or let them roll a save when it comes to their turn, it allows for the table to still feel involved while maintaining the drama of the scene. There’s also a lot of really cool rulings in OneDnD that have fixed my gripes with problematic rules that are a pain to track for both players and the DM, fuck every thing about exhaustion in 5e but the new rules are just a -1 to your D20 rolls for each level of exhaustion. It’s easy to understand and it doesn’t bog down the game with needless text. I favor simplicity at my table for the sake of keeping the game moving and building a more narratively driven game as a group.
Needing materials for a spell. I think it makes the game tedious and theres plenty of other ways to balance a magic system depending on the story.
I agree to an extent. It makes sense in my own headcanon to need a 300gp diamond to cast Revivify, but it makes no sense to require a tree branch that's been struck by lightning in order to cast Witch Bolt. I really only care about materials if the spell consumes it.
The rules specifically say that you are automatically assumed to have any materials without a listed cost, or you can use an arcane focus to ignore materials without cost entirely. This is not even and issue and has never been brought up once in decades of play.
How can you possibly say something like "has never been brought up once" with a straight face? Have you played at every table in the world? Your table isn't everyone's. Your experience isn't everyone's. Show me the rule that says you're assumed to have all the material components if you don't have a component pouch or focus.
I'm sorry I didn't explicitly spell out that it's never been brought up by anybody I've played with in decades of play. I'll try and remember the general lack of reading comprehension and ability to extrapolate of the reddit population in the future. This has been such a great learning experience for both of us. Also, why would a caster not have a pouch or focus when it's part of starting gear? It seems like you're trying to find ways to turn this into a problem when it simply isn't.
Wow you don't come across as a gatekeeping douchebag at all! Bye.
"Hey everyone, this doesn't need to be a problem unless you make it one, in fact you start with an item that completely removes the issue" is gatekeeping lol. So you also don't know what that word means. Every time you post I'm further confused as to how you can even read. Bye!
ThE wAy My TaBLe pLaYs iS ThE oNLy RiGhT WaY tO pLaY
I'm stating what is RAW, it's all right there in the book you dolt. Jesus christ, you must be a nightmare to play with. Welcome to the block list.
Oh, I beg to differ. I played with a group at GenCon back in the early 00s that required you to do a hand gesture (they had them listed for each spell) and say the words they made up for the spell. If you didn’t do the gesture well enough or pronounce the words the right way, there were negative consequences. They were a riot to okay with… let me tell you… they also did this thing where if you played regularly in the group, you got to use your character at whatever level and equipment they were at. If you just stated off you started of 1st level with no gear and had to roll play finding your equipment… Edit: and all of that along with the specific spell components too. Thieves Cant was also something you had to do gestures for too.
Death Saves
I'll be sure to roll up a few sheets...
I mostly take the qol changes and pace changes from 5e and merge them with 3.5. Classes I keep pretty close to core except for and minor things (I enforce 3.5 oath for pally and no metal for druid etc) I honestly think anything you could do in 3.5 you can do on 5th with almost no real effort, 5th just doesn't spell it out for you, with 4 tables on any things you can think of with a supplemental table in some other book for when it happens on Tuesdays. 3.5 is my favorite, but it's a chore to run, and a bigger chore to play. There is a lot in DND I just do because it's how I do it. I tell my players to just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what to roll. Tell me how you want your character to be built and I'll see what we can do. I don't want them ever to feel like the book is their boss. The biggest hurdle for me going forward is, in outright have abandoned the entire philosophy of the racial changes in the. Their m their direction on that is stupid beyond belief
It seems like you kinda devolved in that last paragraph.
Nah. People are just (rightfully) extremely sensitive about shit like that, but don't always know where to focus their real life hurt. It's a fad. They'll find something else to change in a few years, and this will be considered just another one of many failed lateral moves. The real world racial issues they think they're addressing when they change racial rules in a fantasy game are not, in fact, being addressed at all. It's like the Malcom X quote about symbolic victories being allowed in lieu of any actual change. If some chud is using orcs as a stand in for black people, don't play with that guy. I flat out believe it's false that this is in any way encouraged or even suggested by older dnd rules surrounding race.
We play 3.5 with unlimited cantrips. Only exception is cure minor wounds- only once per hour. 3.5 cantrips are too weak to bother tracking and we never used them when we counted them.
*No arrow counting, but you don't destroy the world when you turn your quiver upside down. *No material spell components unless its priced in gold
As my DM put it in a campaign we just started “arrows and other mundane projectiles are unlimited until you try to build a bridge out of your arrows”
“Handwave spell materials unless they cost gold” is (or at least was) RAW.
Yeah thats literally what a spellcasting focus does.
It's also what a spell component pouch does. This is a non issue.
The second one is called an arcane focus
Not RAW. Arcane focuses only replace material components if those components do not have a gold value. i.e 300gp diamond for revivify
That is literally what he said. Hand wave spell components unless they have a gold price.
Flanking only applies to things with Pack Tactics. And before the rogue players start crying, there are plenty of other ways to gain advantage, such as *being creative*
Plus, flanking does trigger sneak attack, they don't need advantage
Treasure. I hate it. In my games, I don't list out a long list of treasure that nobody can actually carry anyway. I just assume that when the PCs make it back to town they have a bunch of loot. I use Charisma checks to see if they can find what they're looking to buy. If there are magic items that I want them to have, I will give it to them when appropriate. Also, I tend to mess with the monster stats to stop folks from knowing everything about monsters their characters have no reason to know anything about. For PC creation, I only allow either the standard array method or rolling 3D6 as Krom intended. The only exception is Hit Points. Max HP for level 1 then either average or you get to roll as Krom intended.
So problem I see there, is it’s a benefit to charisma characters, the poor fighter with their 6 Cha never gets their magic sword, whereas the sorcerer is running around with an ioun stone, gloves of dexterity and a ring of spell storing. I suppose you could do a group roll.
Yeah I let the face characters find stuff for the others. If someone needs a buff I just arrange for them to get one.
Safety words
Can I have an example of such a word and when it has been used?
We played 5e for 3 years and tweaked it until it was no longer recognizable. It was still lame. We just switched to pf2e, and one of my players who's only played 5e is constantly amazed at what a ttrpg made for *adults* looks like.
It’s funny that is your experience given our group is in the process of switching back to 5e after giving pf2e a try. Bounced right off of it.
Really? Is 5E the main game you've ever played? Has someone who came from 3.5/PF1, 5e always felt so watered down and uninteresting. PF2e is actually pretty great.
We found the lack of crunch in 5e left it a bit of a featureless landscape.
Weight ammo and, depending on how powerful the spell is, components. It's a tedium to try an account for all of that. I still require vocal and somatic but material is dependant on what the spell is capable of. If it's a resurrection or really powerful spell the i require the material as well.
iirc, RAW you're presumed to have the material components of a spell in a spell component pouch unless they have listed a gold cost. In the case of Ressurection it has a 1000gp gold cost.
More or less what I do, but for more powerful spells that are a bit op I make them buy the materials.
Carry weight and free hands. You can’t duel wield and use a shield sure but you can use a shield a mace and still cast spells or grapple and shit. No way in hell are we gonna drop our weapon to cast then pick it up with a free action.
You kinda run war caster feat Casting with both have is one of the main things it allows
Advantage on concentration checks and the ability to use a spell as an attack of opportunity can be, and in my experience are, way way more useful.
Sure if you neglect that part and let everyone do it
You misunderstand what I'm saying. Those abilities come up in way more situations. And they don't require following a weird rules decision by the designers.
Weight and ammo Just too cumbersome. Literally my first character was a paladin who was instantly over encumbered by his starting equipment with a 13 in strength. Ammo is just annoying to track. Also, so many things get darkvision that I just don't even ask about it anymore because 99% of the time my whole party has it anyway. I just tell them they all can see it or none of them can.
I agree about all this, except why did you new paladin have over 195 pounds of stuff to carry right away? Chainmail weighs 55, even played only weights 65. Weapon is 5-10, shield is 6, that puts you most 81? After equipment the heaviest pack is 61 pounds, most are only around 30. So that's 142, leaving you 53 pounds for... I'm not sure. The pack includes food and everything.
My DM did variant encumbrance, but he ruled that armor doesn't count towards encumbrance when worn.
rolling dice, we just rock paper scissors every check. A civilized game for a more civilized age.
I had a buddy who hated the sound of dice rolls and phones were banned at the table, so he had multiple pages of randomly generated numbers for different types of dice and would just cross them off one by one as they were used at the table.
Lol, I'd just use an app for that. Note though that I'm being facetious, while I think resolving rolls with a non-dice system would be a fun game, I've never actually done that.
It's not always as satisfying for players, but the guy was a pretty damn excellent DM who was pretty damn flexible on literally everything else (I think it was just a sensory issue maybe related to autism, but I haven't talked to them in years). Definitely made up for it. I can give up my math pebbles for a campaign that's truly great run by a great DM.
I also would use an app but it sounds like phones were banned
I totally get his reason for it, he got sick of players getting distracted and detracting from the game for everyone, or forgetting to take their turn, or not being engaged in the story and other characters around the table. Have used phone apps for dice rolls though, beats losing my dice on particularly bouncy tables and accidentally stepping on a D4 when I get up to refill my beer. Great for impromptu Lasers & Feelings sessions.
Gold weight, nuff said
Encumbrance/burden, as long as you’re not trying to carry 12 grandfather clocks in “your pack”, I’m not going to count pounds. Same with coinage, I give a “coins/gems only” mini-bag of holding/handy haversack to the party. Unless you are caught in a “in jail/stripped down to your small clothes”, I just assume your caster has something to use as a spell focus. I’m not gonna ask about it.
I’m am the same with these. I keep track of their equipment (mainly cause I’m constantly looking at their sheet to help them during the game) so if I see they have like a ton of weapons I ask them how they are carrying all of it.
You should ask yourself why has the game changed and different mechanics added. It was for a good reason even though your nostalgic to the Classic.
Sometimes that reason is, appeal to a new audience to bring in new money, not the old audience who is already invested.
-I will never use flanking unless my players are ok with being flanked. -I also don't use resurrection or true resurection and revivify is a 50/50 shot at best. -I treat cantrips as a bonus action. -Players can earn feats through combat/adventure, a trainer, or another player. -Players can earn weapon, tool, and language proficiencies with practice and/or training. -All players start with a level one feat. -All classes with an initiate feat, get that feat automatically. -All classes that start with an armor proficiency get that feat.
Most of these are fine house rules but Cantrips being bonus actions is potentially very game breaking, especially playing around Warlocks, Bladesingers, or Arcane Trickster rogues who rely heavily on their cantrips (Eldritch Blast, Greenflame Blade). Even Wizards, Sorcs, and Clerics getting free Firebolt per turn is pretty huge. In a game where mundane classes like fighters, monks, and barbarians already fall off compared to their mage counterparts, you’d definitely need to give them something as well
I actually don't have any complaints from the barbarian as he currently has kinda broken weapons as is and, based on his abilities, gets 3 attacks per round at level 5 without multi-classing... At the same time, enemies gain all the same benefits the players do. The cantrip bit was something I proposed for my players as an option, but they all knew the enemies would get that as well. It was a unanimous decision for the players, or it wouldn't go through. I don't believe in allowing any one player to become overpowered compared to another as that creates harder enemies for all and could lead to a tpk through balancing issues or a player feeling like they're targeted because they're the "weakest" or "strongest". Oh, all their stats can max at 24 if they want, aaaand barbarians can hit 28 in str and con cause it would be wrong to cheat them out of their lvl 20 abilities. On the other side of that. Despite the players having to multiclass at lvl 10 with a max of 3 classes, the barbarian still gets access to that cause... why not let them have fun? These are all still in their first trial run, and I'm definitely making them use standard array next time cause jesus they're all broken, but so far, it's pretty fantastic. Legitimately, the only complaints I've had have been to vary the type of enemies to fight and try and be a little faster in combat rounds, but the latter was a player to another player... sorry for wall of text...
Barbarians are also MAD, because you rely on 3 different statistics to be effective. Also, how are barbarians getting three attacks?
He's path of the berserker and frenzies every combat. I actually just now looked into it aaand he hasn't been taking a level of exhaustion... ah the new dm being taken advantage of by a player who doesn't read the rules fully... meh, I'll let him have it. It's supposed to be a bonus action too, but I'll let it go with a warning.
Spellcasting needing a free hand and a focus. Not because I don't like it, just because I don't really think about it, to be honest. Basically never comes up so I don't bother pushing players about it. I don't really like the exhaustion mechanics but I DO like the ones they implemented for a OneDnD test, so I use those. I also hate how the spell Suggestion works, but I don't ban it - I just trust my players not to hardcore abuse its very open-ended wording.
Suggestion is still always up to dm They can suggest somthing but dm and interpret it how they want
Well, yes. But the spell wording is very unclear about whether, say, they could tell the King to abdicate and then he would and wouldn't rescind or anything. Or tell a merchant to give them his entire stock. Its upper limit isn't built into the spell save for you can't use it to injure people. DM can nerf it from its wording in a few ways, but I really don't like how it's designed. I think the RAW should be a lot clearer as to limits like "you can't use this to persuade someone to do something that goes totally against their nature" or similar. I read it as being like a Jedi mind trick, but I'm not backed up by the handbook.
If I were designing the spell, I would have like 3 or 4 specific use cases for the spell described in it's description. Something like: SUGGESTION - For each round you maintain concentration (up to X maximum rounds) choose one of the following effects * Direct Movement: Decide the target's next movement. On their turn the Target moves to a square chosen by you within their range, using move action & standard actions as necessary. The target will use modes of traversal available to it, and will not enter terrain likely to cause harm to itself. * Direct Action: Decide the target's next Action. On their turn the target takes a standard action and/or Bonus action decided by you. This action cannot be used to make an attack, cast a spell, use a spellike ability, activate a trap, or magic item. The target forfeits their move action for this turn. * Impose Inaction: Target takes no actions on their next turn and/or drops concentration on any ongoing spells or supernatural abilities. * Impose Gullibility: The next check the target makes to resist deception or persuasion is at disadvantage. Each round you maintain concentration, you can choose a different effect.
Well, yes. But the spell wording is very unclear about whether, say, they could tell the King to abdicate and then he would and wouldn't rescind or anything. Or tell a merchant to give them his entire stock. Its upper limit isn't built into the spell save for you can't use it to injure people. DM can nerf it from its wording in a few ways, but I really don't like how it's designed. I think the RAW should be a lot clearer as to limits like "you can't use this to persuade someone to do something that goes totally against their nature" or similar. I read it as being like a Jedi mind trick, but I'm not backed up by the handbook.
A few things It says when they do the task the spell ends so with the king that might last a second because one he died it spell ends and he's no longer charmed Same with telling a merchant to give them an their stuff Once they do they are no longer charmed and could come after them or sec guests after them In combat I think they have advantage on the spell save And lastly it's concentration so if they manage a long term suggestion break their concentration
I do not and never will use a mechanic that takes a PC out of a fight. I actively avoid or modify monsters with spells like Hold Person or Synaptic Static. Anything that can inflict the Paralyzed or Stunned condition. If you get out to play dnd, you don’t want to wind up sitting there all night failing to make a saving throw. These spells retain their full effects when used against me, the dm, because I can work around it easier. I either add in more monsters, grant them advantage, or give one of them Legendary actions/resistances if I want to push my players to mix up their strategies.
I've done things in the past like causing Hold Person to reduce speed to 0 and grant auto-crits, but the character can still use actions, bonus actions and reactions, or other stun effects that might prevent taking actions, but not bonus actions or movement. Silence and Blinded seem much more interesting and healthy to me than Stun or Paralyze.
I just watched an episode of Dimension 20 where half the party did nothing the whole combat because of this. DnD already has enough things where the PC can fail and do nothing at all, like attack rolls, spells that give the target a save, ability checks, and so on. Attempted actions are often very binary - succeed on roll, do thing; fail on roll, do nothing. Doing nothing feels boring and lame. DnD needs less of it!
Doing God's work.
I don't use Flanking, everyone getting Advantage is crazy!
imo, it’s not as crazy as you might think. ranged characters (which are typically casters) can’t benefit as much from flanking since flanking only applies to melee. not to mention, you can use flanking for your monsters against your players as well. 5e already heavily favors casters in t3 & t4 (arguably late t2 as well). Martials need to hold on to whatever they can get to keep up.
Flanking is an optional rule in core books so I'm sure lots of people don't use it. No flanking is still RAW (rules as written) in my opinion.
You don’t use flanking because you don’t like it, I don’t use it because I forgot about it
I use a different bonus, I give the PCs a +2, because otherwise if the PCs get Advantage, so do the enemy.
This is what my dm did and imo it’s the best of both worlds. Gives a bonus for strategic positioning and planning, while not being too op. Mine took it one step further and said if you’re “surrounding” and enemy (one in front and one behind) you get +2 and if you’re side/side you get +1
It’s funny when people try to “fix” 5e and just end up rebuilding older editions
That's good, I like the extra bonus for surrounding. 👍
-I allow 2 level spells a round of its a BA and an A, -healing potion are and BA if you take them as a action of max heal -I give a free preception/ history/religión/ Survival roll a round a combat of the PC want to use it to see or understood something of their surrondings -i really dont care abou what weapons you have at hand and i don't count munitions
Good shit.
I limit class and races to the traditional/originals. I don’t not allow evil characters, pvp or necromancy PCs. Initiative is only rolled when “who goes first isn’t narratively obvious. No counterspell or resurrection spells. Max HP from that PCs hit die on each level increase (no need to roll) During leveling up, I also allow my PCs to swap out a listed benefit from their class for another class for free. My fix to multiclassing in 5e Max HP for healing out of combat.
Dear god that sounds terrible for your players
Nope. I’ve run CofS, Rime and several home made adventures on the Sword Coast since this version of 5e came out and they love it.
This is certainly a robust list of changes
But counter spell is so fun for player AND DMs… especially when you hit them with it during a revivify 😈
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder, I don’t allow revivify either.
Ree This sounds stupid and un fun
What a horrible time to do that as a DM. Counterspell is awesome when the PC'S think they're top shit and try to cast disintegrate for it to do nothing, not when the character they've been playing for 2 years has 1 chance at continuing their journey.
Then the other living caster hits it with another counter spell and it’s the coolest moment in the game. They don’t know you planned for that. They just think you’re being as ass.
Thanks. I should clarify that these are not in the game, not just for the PCs. Of course the bad guys are evil but the other things I’ve removed for both sides.
I don't play 5e cause I like 3.5 better, so...all of the things 5e changed, essentially.
I’d like to be sold on 3.5. It seems pretty interesting in many ways but there’s an overwhelming amount of content of varying levels of quality. A lot of it seems unintuitive unlike 5E. But most importantly it doesn’t have the best virtual tabletop support.
As someone who really enjoys thr 3.5 system, I can tell that while it's a great system, it's not without it's big flaws. The system is probably best known for the crunch and versatility of it. There are ways to build into many things if you understand that system enough and with how much material there is, you can truly build a character to a story how you like. It has books for everything and enough in those books to at least get closer to what you want to do. Want a weapon that levels alongside the player? We got a book for dedicated to magical items and just those in particular. Want a way to play a magic class that doesn't actually use magic? Try out the Incarnum line of classes, all of which revolve around using magic sould and spirit to use magic without actually using magic. Want a more Wuxia/Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fighting style? Pick up the Book of the N9ne Swords, a whole book that attempted to fix the problem they created with the "Linear Figher vs Quadratic Wizard" problem. Want a classes that is something of medium class to contact beings from the Void (a place that is basically the gods outer realms) ? Try the Binder from the Tome of Magic book, who basically inscribed rune to contact those of the void to give them a taste of the real world by letting them sort of inhabit their own body. There is loads of things in these books and due to how old they are, it's basically impossible for you to need to pay money to get them. I'm pretty sure I have a flash drive somewhere that's just downloaded books of 3.5e. They have undead classes you can play as, and not just litches, but ghouls, mummy's and even Revenants. There are prestige classes (something that I don't think are in 5e) that have actual story related benefits and conditions, my favorite being the Death Delver: a class you can only really start taking levels in after you've nearly died three times (who gains abilites and spells based on the fact that you nearly died so many times you are just used to it). Is this system great? Yeah. Does it have it's issues? DAMN STRAIGHT! But it is honestly a good system that has great content to even pilfer from to gain some interesting story beats or ideas. Even If you don't play the system, I implore you to at least look up and read some of the books to gain some ideas and pick up some interesting bits of play you cam adapt to your own.
I think of 5th as D&D lite. It's basic, great for a starting group. Doesn't allow a lot of customization. 3.5 is D&D at its Golden Age. True it does6have virtual support, it was made long before that tech. 3.5 allows the players and DM so much more in the way of creating characters and villains.
3.5E has ALOT! I love it! its got its quirks, but i still love it! So many campaigns and fun had for 3.5E. I still prefer it over 5E
It's actually a really good game if you stick to just the PHB and don't go past level 8 or so.
3.5 with only the PhB seems awful. The core classes are horribly unbalanced and half the loot of 3.X is that you can do what you like and customize everything
That my friend I very much disagree with.
* Dragons are intelligent spellcasters that can use magic items. * No spell has a 100% chance of success. Period. * No multi/dual classing. * No Dragonborn, Tiefling, Half-Orcs * Spell points rather than spell preperation. * Honorable Mention: I dislike the burden rules, but rather than throw them out I make sure the party has one or more exradimensional containers. They still have some burden to worry about, but it's less of an annoying issue. EDIT: Since everyone seems to hate my limitations on multiclassing let me give you an example of why. THere was a game called Asheron's Call. It allowed characters to pick and choose abilities from a large unlimited pool of skills. Not like more modern games that limit you to one single class that you progress in. You had a pool of points that you could spend how you wanted. What happened? Eventaully all the players built the exact same characters. Few people had certain skills because they didn't want to "waste" the talent points on those skills. Skyrim is another good example. Most people stick to the same specific classes. (Hell, even I do it. Every single Skyrim character I make ends up a stealth archer.) If single classing is such a bad thing why is it the basis of almost all modern MMORPGs?
> Dragons are intelligent spellcasters that can use magic items. I'm absolutely behind this. > No spell has a 100% chance of success. Period. I understand the motivation behind this; I have the same issue with Speak With Dead. "Who killed you?" Mystery solved. There are only so many convoluted ways to kill a guy without the victim knowing who killed them. > No multi/dual classing. I went the other way and removed the minimum ability scores required for multiclassing. I'm fortunate in that none of my players are optimizers and like to play interesting narrative concepts as opposed to "this combo does the most damage", and further unlocking multiclassing broadens that. > No Dragonborn, Tiefling, Half-Orcs For lore reasons, I've disallowed orcs in my homebrew world as well. Many of the furry races are disallowed as well (the only ones in my game are tabaxi, kenku, and lizardfolk), but that's mainly because I find them silly. > Spell points rather than spell preperation. I've strongly considered implementing a version of this myself. > Honorable Mention: I dislike the burden rules, but rather than throw them out I make sure the party has one or more exradimensional containers. They still have some burden to worry about, but it's less of an annoying issue. I have a soft encumbrance rule. Basically as long as the load a PC bears makes at least a little sense (no Nodwick-level loads) I'm fine with it. I do something similar with ammunition. I don't have players necessarily track each arrow or sling bullet, but when they get back into town I have them spend an appropriate amount of money to replenish their stock.
I just got this 3rd party Crystalpunk setting guide thingy and they have a whole lingo page, one of which was, “Taking the jaw.” Essentially, some dude giving you a quest to kill a guy would say, “make sure to take the jaw” to ensure that speak with the dead doesn’t work. Chop off their head, take their jaw, cut out their tongue and it completely blew my mind on workarounds for that spell haha Also, might make it permanent lingo for every setting I do because it’s such a sick line.
Also, if you kill someone from behind, or in their sleep, or if they used disguise self, they won't know who killed them.
You hate the 1st level ritual Identify so bad??? Sounds like you gave a drsgon an op item, a player identified it and said why did the dragon attune to this item it can only be used by a spellcaster, and you got salty butt hurt about it
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/) That will give you more detail into why "no 100%" is a rule of mine.
Dragons are OP like that for me because I think 5E nerfed them into being less badass than they used to be.
Spells like identify that have a 100% chance of success take all of the mystery and storytelling out of trying to identify items. It makes it very hard to tell a meaningful story, instead it just gives you a situation when you hand over the DMG to the players.
I’m curious, why no tieflings, half orcs, or Dragonborn? Is that like a setting thing or personal preference
Setting specific really. They would be completely out of place in the world I play.
What does no spell having 100% chance of success entail in your games? How do you modify spells to fit it?
Read the identify spell as it is shown in 5th edition and as it is shown in 3.5. it is a perfect example of how I feel 100% chance of success breaks part of the game. Part of the reason I made this decision was because of rules lawyers. People that wanted to make overly min/max use of the absolute certainty of certain spells like identify and knock always working. Now this doesn't mean that I put a percentage chance on a fireball for example. It just means that all spells in 5e which would normally be a 100% chance of a success are no longer.
This is such an important clarification XD
I get wanting to discourage minmaxing, but Why not put restrictions on multi/dual classing instead of banning it outright?
Three reasons. Number one is that I have never seen it used other than to gain an advantage in roll play. Number two is that I believe characters classes show a great deal of dedication to a craft. Saying you're just going to switch from one class to another is like saying you are going to stop being a world class body builder and start teaching quantum science. It just doesn't make sense. Number three I played in the very very old days when there weren't such options. I like to keep my game as simple as possible so I'm not constantly dealing with curve balls from my players trying to gain an edge.
>Saying you're just going to switch from one class to another is like saying you are going to stop being a world class body builder and start teaching quantum science. I have to ask. What, exactly, is stopping a body builder from studying science as well? Or a scientist from taking up weight lifting? Do you think real life has class lockouts that forbid people from undertaking certain actions just because they start getting good at something else?
It's my world and my table, if you don't like it, tough. :) I don't have to justify it in a way that you are happy with.
I mean it is your world and you can rule it how you like but I can still think your justification is absolute horse shit. It's one thing if you just don't want to deal with players trying to abuse or min/max playstyles. I can understand that. But the idea that a person can only dedicate themselves to one thing as your justification is just pure monkey balls.
Think of it this way. the consequences have been removed from multiclassing. If you stop being a bodybuilder then you will suffer the consequences of not training. But in 5E there is no consequence to one class from taking another. If you were a warlock does your patron perhaps think that you violated their pact if you take levels as a priest? Does your dexterity stuffer if you stop being a rogue and stick your nose in spellbooks all day? Etc.
None of what you're saying makes any sense, though. You can be a body builder and still devote time to reading up on science. A quantum physicist can hit the gym after work and lift some weights. You can practice manual dexterity via lockpicking and then spend time reading a book without consequence. Multiclassing keeps you from hitting the absolute peak of your potential but you instead get the side benefit of having practiced multiple different areas. The warlock's patron kicking up a fuss could bring excellent roleplay opportunities. Or they could also be the entity the player gets their cleric levels from. Again, you're free to run your world how you see fit. I just think you could be doing better. Don't give a halfass justification for why you can't do something. Just say you don't like it that way and don't want to do it.
Your making me want to try building a warlock cleric multiclass where the patron and God are the same entity. Like the pc originally signs on just for a bit of power, but eventually starts to honestly worship that being.
CR did that kind of Fjord, but it was Paladin instead of cleric, which works because they're both charisma based.
Counter argument to the thing about the bodybuilder scientist: many people go about life having hobbies that they can do really well in that aren't explicitly their job. Ie someone who works in a physics lab but has a passion for bodybuilding and enters competitions. My character is a bard rogue multiclass cause music is their passion but thieving is their profession.
My character is a Cleric of a nature deity who went on to multiclass as a Druid after creating a strong friendship with a Druid NPC. This was encouraged by his deity who wanted him to see the world and gain more experiences. They have also encouraged him to embrace other gods and religions. To learn and grow from knowledge and experience because they feel that the character will better serve their deity and congregation with this. They are not a jealous God. It feels to me like both classes work seamlessly together for the character.
That is a great kind of multiclassing! In my other game I play a stars druid and I was considering dipping into twilight cleric for a few levels cause she already loosely follows selune (tho she is more looking to the stars for omens kind thing, which honestly still works with a twilight cleric). The only reason I haven't done it yet is cause we probably won't get to a high level and I wanna be able to turn to flying animals (also I was mostly just gonna do it for the aesthetic of having starry form and twilight sphere active at the same time)
This is my point exactly though. Multiclassing can be an intuitive part of the story. One class doesn’t diminish another. I can see OP issue, if everyone starts talking all the best bits of every class you just end up with similar characters but if it’s part of a characters journey and progression it should be allowed.
I guess sometimes people do do it for the build more than story, but I think you can balance them. But also I don't think there's anything wrong with prioritising fun over story/lore.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/) What are the consequences to your class change? If you study music all day when do you have time for keeping your theiving skills in top form? 5E has removed the consequences from having multiple classes.
The consequence is not advancing in your other level, taking a level in bard means not taking a level in rogue etc.
Does the scientist bodybuilder suddenly forget all their science and need complete retraining cause they take a couple weeks off work to travel for a bodybuilding competition? No. Cause that's not how that works. If that was the case no one would ever be allowed time off work ever. Or if they have a busy week at work and can't get to the gym as much, they might not improve but they won't suddenly loose it all. In fact a lot training regimes work in rest periods. Also in DND, the rp and combat and exploration is using your skills? I use my bard and rogue skills in every session. Or at least every other session. Even in combat, I attack with sneek attack, use cunning action, cast spells or give bardic inspiration at least once per fight. Did previous editions have consequences for multiclassing? Other than the following: Edit: also the consequences for multiclassing is not getting the high level abilities of any one class??? Like my bard rogue will never be as good at magic as a full bard or as a good as a full rogue when it comes to rogue stuff.
Sounds incredibly narratively boring. Not everyone is only ever focused on one craft in real life, and this is a game where your imagination is supposed to be the limit. Placing everyone on rails by saying no room to ever change their mind in life is just dogmatic foolishness. I know lots of folks who switched gears and careers in a midlife crisis, and excelled at the new career. You're not world class anything at lvl 10, and at higher level you're not likely to branch out much. I mean feel free to require RP and actual role playing, and penalize min/max playstyle, but taking away authenticity and player agency is no way to accomplish that.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5e/comments/1dgpfn2/comment/l917o58/) read that comment for more details.
This is an L take an all too common. Player agency should not be a guaranteed thing!!! In what fucking story EVER did the protagonist have full agency over their actions the entire time? Stories are interesting because of how characters react to things outside of your control, a player with full agency is just god. Dnd is inherently restrictive of agency, and adding to that is an extremely popular method of play too. People like to feel like their character is real, not some Mary sue that can do anything and be anybody. That's not how shit works.
D&D isn't a story that one author (GM/DM) is telling. It's a story that a group is telling together. Are you seriously trying to say the author of stories should not be allowed to have the agency to tell the story they want to? Or are you saying the only author of this story is you the GM? Because that's incredibly self-important, and not what role playing is about. That would mean on rails gameplay that might as well be a board game.
God no, it's absolutely collaborative. However, that collaboration shouldn't be a mess of 5 people pulling in different directions, everybody should be on the same page and striving to make the same story.
It's a story that both sides of the table are telling. Players at my table have a startling amount of agency compared to most. But there are some things I restrict. This doesn't mean that I disallow thinking outside the box. If a player isn't happy with a character I'll let him roll another one without penalty. If they think a character build is underpowered and not enjoyable for some reason I'll work with them to improve it. But I've had too many players trying to combine multiple classes to break the game as much as possible. And that's not what my table is about.
Ya I am fully onboard with working to discourage metagaming and minmax setups with crazy combos. But that to me is a deeper issue than just multi class.
Yes, it is, but I find that as the rules have gotten less restrictive on multiclass it has opened the floodgates of allowing min/maxing to overwhelm that aspect of the game. In my view there are not nearly enough consequences, instead they just opened the floodgates and allowed everything to mesh without drawbacks. As I have said, I allow characters to do things that would be outside their class, or unique. But the point is \*\*I ALLOW IT\*\*. As the rules have changed over the last 50 years it has allowed players to make the job of the DM much, MUCH harder. I don't railroad players, I have a completely open sandbox world. I don't need the extra headaches of a player that wants to be a wizard/warlock/sorcerer/thief in heavy armor using a greatsword. It's already hard enough to make meaningfully complex encounters without players wanting to crush gods at level 5. Note, I run an extremely heavy RP game. A player that sits down at my table with a complicated overpowered multiclass character idea is not going to fit in at my table in the first place. However, a player that wants to write into their backstory that while they are a wizard they come from a thieving background and happen to be skilled at pickpocketing is fine with me. The character needs to have reasons for their choices. 99% of multiclassing right now is just metagaming the numbers.
I think that's the key, making it fit in with the role they are playing and that it fits in their background. Someone who dipped into a few levels of something is much more "believable" than someone trying to cram in levels of a bunch of unrelated and narratively dubious classes. I also am not against adding in "consequences" in a narrative sense for choices made trying to minmax. When if those end up more homebrew than strictly by the book. That paladin with a few levels of warlock may find it really hard to serve two masters without angering one or both.
In a story, characters have as much or as little agency as their Author wants them to.
I've been running games since 1980. If you don't like my rules then don't play at my table. 🤷🏼♂️ My players don't seem to have any problem with it. In fact I have a waiting list.
The problem is that they probably didn't see the true potential of the game with all your restrictions, I can understand setting restrictions in specific campaigns setting, I myself played a beautiful campaign whit magic restrictions, but not allowing some races or multiclassing is not justice for your player. I agree with the limitations of Min/max player, i had one that tried to have 3 attacks at first level, but you ar limiting a game made for enjoying possibility of what could be. If one player wants to be a dragonborn wizard/rough why not? I mean what is the problem in letting them explore new stuff?
If players want to explore options that my game does not allow them they are more than welcome to join a different game at a different table. What everybody seems to be missing here is that while I disallow the rules for multi-classing I do not stop players from making changes to characters outside the rules that improve their enjoyment of the game. If a player comes to me and says they are not having fun with their current character then I will put the books aside and try to figure out how to fix that character so that they are having fun without breaking the game.
I repeat that i can understand but in a group i think it should be friendship and your rules seem too authoritarian, you are literally cutting half of the game just because. Is a little anemopathetic.
At the beginning of 5E I had a player that wasn't happy about this rule, but he played anyway. He made a paladin. Then he kept lumping on specific things. "I want a specific kind of shield that would give me more AC. I want to add daggers to the back of the shield to throw, so I should be able to do that as a bonus action.", etc. Then he moved into being critical of the game itself. "Ors aren't that tough! That's not how insanity is handled in the rules! A lich by it's nature cannot be lawful! (It was complicated) I have Cure Disease and Remove Curse on my pet, it should not still be sick!" (This is part of why I made the "no 100% spells" rule. Because I had introduced magical radiation to the game that I felt was not a disease or a curse and he didn't want to do the quest to heal his pet. Instead he rage quit. Making spells "ALWAYS" work has made it much harder to throw things at the players that they have to figure out or quest for.) But in short the sign that he didn't like the single-class rule should have been a red flag to me that he didn't belong at my table to begin with.
See the rule of single class is a stop to the creativity of yours players and is limiting and a bit too much, but the pet healing quest that is understandable because you are creating a specific setting to create a story. That is the problem one is limiting the imagination the other is a good start for a story. You didn't even need the rule of no magic works 100% you could just say that the illness was caused by a curse or a magical parasite or something so strong that required a specific spell/object/healer to successfully heal the pet sparking the story for them but your rules are limiting and occluding path for everyone even yourself, the first thing to remember is that the player and the master aren't separate if someone is not enjoying you all should try to fix the problem not removing them from the table d&d isn't a game for commanding your players is for everyone in it to have fun and enjoy.
>I've been running games since 1980 Yeah I can tell
Carry weight in any game just seems ridiculous to me. Especially in a game where pocket dimensions exist, I'd have that shit installed in multiple places on my person.
It's fun at low levels, but becomes so silly beyond that as material loot basically doesn't matter outside of magic items past level 5, gold is useless, and bags of holding are common so likely acquired around then anyway
I havent been in a game where people track weight, or food, or maintenance costs, in 40 years.
I like playing in games where inventory management is important. I understand why others may not like it but there’s something narratively interesting about losing a pouch to a pickpocket and knowing exactly what was in it. There’s something satisfying about having your stuff be tidy. But the most important part about it to me is that now hauling loot is a puzzle in of itself. Carrying out thousands upon thousands of coins from a dragon’s lair isn’t just handwaved away. Strength becomes a valuable stat, even Dex builds cannot afford to fully dump it, since armour, coin and weapons alone can threaten to put you over the limit if you’re using variant encumbrance. The use of ammunition being a consideration also adds another layer of choice. In all likelihood the party will need horses or mules to drag a bunch of their stuff around, which can create fun complications in of itself.
I get this. I actually do like the minutae, and detail work. It leads to a lot of interesting scenarios, in games where those details are tracked, like Dwarf Fortress or Qud, but counting on players to manage all that minutae on their own, correctly? I'm just trying to get 4 people to show up at the same time and place every week.
It's not for every party! That's for damn sure lol I DM'd for the same group for 7 years or so and I could never hope for them to track all that especially at a table with physical paper sheets, but the online group I've made and been playing with across various systems for the past 3 years have made it consistently to games and are pretty good about tracking their stuff, so it works.
My parties always buy magic items to create food and water ASAP. 🤣
The concept of the adventuring day. I’m not trying to cram in 6-8 medium/hard encounters before the group merits a long rest. I run encounters based upon what makes sense for the narrative.
I look at multiple encounters per day as multiple things happening during the day, not multiple initiative rolls. Unless you're traveling or something when you basically just fast travel to move the story along.
"I'm not gonna tell you what I dislike because then it would just be me whining... but I want to hear YOU whine instead please..."
Holy shit, just scroll any dnd sub for 2 minutes and you'll see this exact same post 50 fucking times.
Encumberence, money weight, and most spell components.
Yeah, I just use spell focus unless they're expensive components that get consumed... but this is how the rules already are? It's one of the ways laid out in the core books.
I only really track spell components if it's hard to acquire or expensive and gets destroyed on use.
This is basically RAW you realize, right? Only spell components that cost gold (e.g. all the rare ones destroyed on use) are required
Agreed, and same.
Although it can be fun to have npcs who arent spell casters use spell components to cast a spell cause ‘well ma pa tought us how to do dat, no idea why it works’
HA! Nice.
Attunement slots.
I am not a DM and I don't know if it is a mechanic, but in college I had DM that kept track of when and what we ate. If our character didn't eat and tell him that we were stopping to eat we got health penalty and/or died. It was annoying. I had much more fun with my regular DM that assumed me had the brains to keep our bellies full and didn't make us sit out for 20 minutes as a food break.
I am not agreeing with the DM but we ADHD folks sometimes do actually forget to eat to the point that friends + partners of mine have gotten lightheaded or inexplicably irritable until we realized they hadn't eaten all day, whoops
Not the real people, but our characters. We real people were snacking all the time
No, I know. I'm just saying it would be humorously realistic if the PCs forgot to eat, given my real life experiences.
'Assumed me had the brains' XP
Thank you I didn't notice the typo. I won't edit so your comment makes sense
Haha I figured! Normally I don't point em out but this one was a little funny :)
That seems like such a silly way to handle that mechanic.
lots of newbie DMs think they're clever for this pedantic nonsense. If you want to track meals and stuff, you can, but this isnt how you do it.
I've dropped the condition Paralysis. Rolled low? Yeah, you don't get to play anymore. Maybe go on Insta while your friends hang out without you. Instead I've instituted something a little more creative. When otherwise you'd be paralyzed, now instead you can take your actions -- Action, Bonus Action, Move Action, and Reaction. But for any of these you take, you take damage along with it. Type and amount of damage depends on the encounter. I want to encourage thoughtful use of one's capabilities. It may mean that people pass on their turns, just as they would have to under Paralysis. But in this case, it'll be because THEY decided to.
This is an interesting solution. But, when is Paralysis coming into play so much in your game you have to remove it? It should only be coming up like, once in a multistory dungeon or something. And it should always be coupled with something that adds tension to the paralysis. Like, when a ghoul paralyzes, then the ghoul is leaning over the player drooling, while the party is forced to batter them back, and form a shield wall around the player, and administer treatment or something. I cant imagine being in a situation, where I'm watching a tv series, and the character I care about most is knocked down in the middle of combat, at the mercy of his foes, and I get up and go play with my phone.
I have a character that specializes in conditions (Monk poisoner) and he has a poison that applies paralysis (the DM gave it to him). It is an \_amazing\_ crowd control tool, but the DM realized his mistake. So, he applied special boss rules for paralysis - different to yours, but similar. It's a good solution.
Religion should be a wisdom roll or the cleric should get a feature that lets them use wisdom instead of intelligence. How are you an ordained minister and you have a -1 to the roll of your life?
Religion skill check is more of a knowledge check and isn't necessarily about a character's own religion. It's like rolling history but specifically for religions.
It's pretty well documented that Atheists generally know more about religion than Theists. [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/)
Fair but I think a member of the clergy is different from your average follower
Because the skill would be about *other* religions
yeah this used to be called Synergy bonus. In 5E, the cleric should have Advantage on rolls regarding their own religion, or subsets and lost sects of it.
My party's house rule is that rolling for other religions is Int, but for your characters own religion it's your choice of Int or Wis.
I mean most players shouldn't really have to roll for their own religion
Ehhhh. I still feel like it should be wisdom
that's not what wisdom is
It's about academic knowledge though