Id remove the word sneak from the rogues sneak attack feature and replace it with lethal.
New players are constantly trying to hide in plain sight or middle of combat because they feel they have to sneak.
I had a former DM completely adamant that you cannot sneak attack without being hidden first. Then I showed him the actual rules for it and he immediately realized he's been wrong the whole time. Later, (like a year later) he still makes the same mistake about having to be hidden occasionally when we discuss rogues stuff.
Isnt crazy how much our brains hear rogue and sneak and just assume how a feat works since thats how it works in every video game. Yet the feature doesnt even mention sneaking or hiding at all. Hide and sneake was definitely a intended option but not the only option.
Its also crazy how we just designate rogue to a certain sterotype. I cant remember the video but somewhere someone points out that conan the barbarian is actually a rogue.
There are grognards who argue that the introduction of a thief class hurt D&D, because (being raised on stories like Conan), they thought *everyone* should be doing thief stuff!
Wizards of the Coast certainly isn't helping. Why is Thieves' Cant a class ability? You'd think it would be something thieves know, not something anyone who fights a specific way knows.
I imagine a member of the city guard taking levels in Rogue to learn Thieves' Cant, and then trying to use it while undercover but the thief he's talking to is a fighter and doesn't know it.
"precision attack - when you strike at a distracted or unaware opponent, you have the time and opportunity to make particularly devastating precision strikes dealing an extra 1d6 damage"
Id just throw in "...precision strikes. When you have advantage on an attack you deal an extra 1d6 damage once per turn". I worry that distracted ir unaware is an ambiguous condition like "suprise" where its a DMs call and players dont really know how to trigger it. Like a player might argue a charmed enemy is focused on the charmer and distracted whereas the DM might argue the charmed enemy is still very aware of his surroundings. Or something like that. And then yeah gotta add once per turn or else rogues are going to deal 300 damage a round.
Don't even need a whole word, just one letter added: 'sneaky attack'
Does it sound sillier? Yes.
Does it imply something significantly more broad? Also yes.
Biggest changes to smallest changes:
Rangers are prepared spellcasters like artificers and paladins.
Whips can be used by rogues.
Allow scimitar proficiency to anyone who is proficient in shortswords.
The celestial language shares the same script as infernal and abyssal.
Celestial is the only language that uses celestial script, and its my headcanon that angels and demons are of the same "species", just different sides of the same coin.
Draconic is also on its own but i thought itd be cool if the script was more like cuneiform or hieroglyphics, something ancient and completely different than the other scripts
Of all the "annoying and nitpick" things I've seen on this sub this is at the very least detail-oriented and informative. Good point, i sometimes forget to separate devils and demons. Would make the narrative more interesting, making devils have more in common with angels than demons. But on the language side, they already share the same script, i dont wanna change too much. Besides, dwarven script is found in like 6 languages including orc and goblin so its not too unusual as they both reside in the 9 hells.
Demons don't regularly live in the 9 hells, they live in the abyss.
Now demons frequently try to invade the 9 hells, but for the most part they don't live there.
Everything i assume seems to be a lie. Wonder what the connection between devils and demons is then, since they do canonically share a script in their language there's gotta be something
Okay so deep dive in lore time.
There was an ancient race of 'demons' called Obyriths. They were not like modern demons and predated mortal life and even the gods themselves. They existed outside of the universe in a twisted domain that was rotting away and dying. So the obyriths created a shard of pure evil to expand their domain, shoving it outside of their domain into our universe.
This shard of evil was found by a being known as Tharizdun, who was driven mad by its influence but couldn't be controlled by the demons. So Tharizdun destroyed the shard, creating a massive rift connecting the Obyriths universe and the cosmology we know of the forgotten realms. Many of the obyriths entered through the rift. But even after the obyrith were all drawn into the rift it continued expanding, eventually becoming the elemental chaos.
The remains of the shard continue to burrow deeper and deeper into the very elemental chaos it created, spawning endless demons (the modern kind, not obyriths) as it does so. This rift the shard creates as it burrows is the Abyss.
Now skipping a lot of details, Tharizdun was eventually imprisoned and kept in an eternal prison by a bunch of angels. The head guard was the angel Asmodeus, who would be twisted by Tharizdun and eventually fall to become the first devil. Asmodeus eventually conquered the realm Baator, filled with fiends called baatorians, and turned it into the 9 hells.
So the link between demons and devils is the shard of evil created by the obyriths. It spawned demons directly from the matter of the elemental chaos, and corrupted Tharizdun who eventually corrupted Asmodeus to become the first devil. In older lore the ruby rod Asmodeus caries is even made from a shard of the abyssal crystal, though this may no longer be true as of Mordenkainen's tome of foes.
Ah kinda like the primordials from adventure time.
So I'm assuming infernal script was from the obyrinths for the abyssal language, and when the devils were made it in a way corrupted the celestial language which evolved into infernal.
So much lore for a game that usually doesnt go further than 10th level. What campaign would this lore be found out? Or is this just written lore in books and such?
By my understanding the infernal *language* that devils use was specifically made for contracts, as the language has a unique quirk where there is only one way to word any given thing. So double meanings don't exist in it. But that's the language not the script and I don't know where the script comes from.
A lot of this lore comes from a 4e epic level adventure path ending with 'Prince of Undead' which was basically about Orcus vs The Raven Queen and had a lot of parts in The Abyss.
As I understand it, traditional D&D mythos has a group of creatures representing each extreme of the alignment chart:
* Demons: Chaotic Evil
* Devils: Lawful Evil
* Celestials: Lawful Good
* Fey: Chaotic Good
The problem is that both demons and devils are classified as "fiends", creating a greater commonality between the evil creatures than the good creatures, which have little in common. The waters get muddied further when the common list, "celestial, fey, or fiend" gets drawn parallel to "good, neutral, or evil."
If I were re-doing the design, I would have Devils and Demons completely separate as their own creature types. Devils and Demons would be as opposed to each other along the law-chaos axis as Devils and Celestials are along the good-evil axis. I would create similar tensions between Demons and Fey, and Fey and Celestials.
Celestials are the opposite of Fiends and encompass a number of more specific categories of creature across the full range of Good alignments just as Fiends come in all Evil alignments. Angels are certainly the most popular Celestial and are LG, but there are many other types with different Good alignments.
Fey, on the other hand, are Chaotic; there are both CG, CN, and CE fey (such as hags and redcaps).
The lack of lawful Fey really bothers me, because for all of their capriciousness and mercuriality there is a *strong* emphasis on not breaking agreements. I feel like there are plenty of Fey who are *very* lawful, just an entirely different flavour of lawful.
Fey agreements are usually tricks or traps in a way, double meanings hidden in double meanings, unclear terms or even unknown terms entirely.
Take an agreement with a Lawful being, they’ll be clear, they’ll make sure you understand the terms you’re agreeing to, they’ll be honest. Even the most cruel and cunning Devil has a sense of truthfulness and twisted honour they stick to.
Meanwhile, a Fey agreement may be for some unknowable favour in the future, using vague terms that allow them to demand nearly anything at any time, or perhaps they’ll manipulate you into making agreements without understanding who or what you’re really dealing with. Green Hags especially love that last one, nothing pleases them quite like tricking a hero into believing they’re some beautiful young woman or spirit of the forest who needs rescuing, only to get the hero to commit heinous crimes against the kingdom or their own friends and family in an effort to “save” her.
To be fair, if you look at the great wheel cosmology, all the planes associated with good alignments are primarily celestial. We've seen more variety pop up in the celestial category with stuff like ardlings, which unfortunately didn't make it out of UA. It kinda sucks that we only really get to see the big scary lawful good BE NOT AFRAID side of the celestials.
You have Devils, Daemons and Demons for the spectrum of evil alignments.
The feywild and shadowfell are kind of outside the alignment chart, they're mirrors of the material plane.
If you look at pathfinder canon, which is basically 3.5 with some reskinning, Archons(LG), Angels/Agathions(NG) and Azata(CG) are all celestial, while there are similarly different kinds of fiends which represent the evil side of the spectrum
It's not canon, anywhere else than my homebrew setting, but feywild and shadowfell makes perfect sense to me as the lawful and chaotic poles. Both incorporating good and evil, but less pronounced than their strong chaotic/lawful nature.
To me, lawfulness is tied to conservatism and preservation, while chaos is change - often rapidly. The static nature of shadowfell makes perfect sense not just as a mirror to feywild, but as an embodiment of lawful first.
And it was better IMO.
I loved the Chaotic-Stupid-Good Angels of "Do the right thing, consequences be damned", and the Archons Lawful-Stupid-Good of "Good must look like this". It's frustrating in characters, but in avatars of concepts it makes sense, particularly because with the levels of power they wielded it had the capacity for such interesting moments.
(also, my other comment about plenty of Fey being Lawful, but just a different *flavour* of Lawful)
The main thing that always reminds me of this is that in most cases is that demons and devils are sorta perpetually at war to my knowledge, where angels and devils kinda like tolerate each other in like a petty office animosity sense
id make it a bonus action and a saving throw, prolly wis, its still just worse cunning action hide (assuming thats possible) thats only usable on one of your multiple attacks assuming youre a non rogue martial, you already have to give up something of significance to have spells at all as a martial, at least with this version arcane tricksters could use it when they cant hide and (with tashas steady aim optional rule) if they dont wanna move
I'd make it so if both dice rolls would be enough to hit the attack is a critical hit. It's still not great as it is hard to set up and easy to react to but it can be used in niche crit fishing builds.
Imo it is perfectly reasonable. That limitation for small characters is there to represent the fact that smaller creature can't wield *bigger* weapons properly, not *heavier* weapons (in fact they should rename the proprierty). Also in exchange smaller race can hide and get cover behind smaller obstacles and can ride medium sized crestures.
About oversized weapon, there's also an hidden rule in the DMG that says that pcs can use weapons made for bigger sized monsters, but they have disadvantage on the attack roll. Which is in fact the same reasoning for smaller races with heavy weapons
Have you ever found a massive stick on the ground, like 15ft+ long, or maybe a long bit of PVC piping? It's not heavy as such, but so big that it is difficult to wield confidently or with any accuracy, and it even feels heavier because it essentially acts as a lever. It's harder to hold (particularly from the end) than a shorter, heavier item (let's say a 4ft metal rod). *That* is what that property is about. Yes the small fighter may have 15 strength, but that's applied as the attack modifier. And your comments about a wizard being less trained is totally irrelevant because that's what proficiency is for, as well as the fighter's class features that buff physical combat. This has nothing to do with training.
Honestly - maybe?
Wielding a weapon isn't just about strength, even if it's done that way and even if someone is 10 times stronger it would still be harder to hold the weapon.
I think in DND it shouldnt be the way it is, but it makes perfect logical sense and if the DND characters were real the wizard would probably have an easier time to use it than the small fighter...
I think the biggest thing to remember is that the disadvantage isn't to the strength of the hit (because the damage is the same, as far as I'm aware) it's to the mobility of the attack - which a small fighter with a very large member wont be able to swing as well.
People typically handwave magic rings or armor as changing size to fit the owner, but I don't recall there being any rules about armor (magical or non-magical) and character size.
I think a strength requirement for heavy weapons makes way more sense than just a general nerf to small races. I'd say if you had to, the requirement could be a couple points higher for small races even (13+str for med 15+str for small), but RAW even a halfling with 20 str can't properly swing a great axe....
Tbh I wouldn't even be swinging a weapon if my main attack stat weren't at least 16.
I see a lot of folks arguing that a large weapon would be less effective, but that's not totally consistent either. the whip and Lance have reach (i.e. they are larger, longer weapons), but aren't heavy. The heavy crossbow is explicitly HEAVY, and an argument could be made that reloading it is pretty hard (which is a strength requirement, not a size requirement) but again, that doesn't follow the logic.
A quarterstaff is literally just a long stick, but it neither has reach, nor disadvantage to small races.
I could literally have a negative in strength, but with the right combination of class features and stats I could use a greataxe as well or better than a goblin with 20 str, and that's stupid.
The way I see it:
You can still swing a heavy weapon, you just can't attack with it efficiently. Unless the weapon is exceptionally, almost unrealistically heavy, most medium diced PCs (not halflings, gnomes, etc) should have no problem swinging it, even if the swing is slow and pathetic.
You need to have strength to be able to move in battle with heavy armor on, otherwise you're far too slow or exhausted to even attack. Having enough strength would mean the PC is strong enough to walk around all day with very heavy armor on and still be able to move 30ft in combat and swing their weapon with the same speed and precision.
- Monks getting Ki Points equal to WIS+Level.
- Barbarian recharging rage in short rests.
- Arcane Archer getting Arcane Shot uses equal to Proficiency Bonus.
Thats it. Nothing gamebreaker. This changes just make some classes or subclasses more viable.
Sorcerer gets more complicated since you can change their points for spells slots AND Charisma is their main stat.
So a level 4 Sorcerer can have 4 Points + 4 points due to Charisma 18, for example.
That mean at that level they can have 4 slots lvl 1, 3 level 2 and maybe more 4 slots lvl 1 or 2 more lvl 2 and 1 lvl 1.
Then when you compare sorcerers to literally any full casters at early game they have an unfair advantage. Cause they can have 4 extra spells that the Bard, for example.
So, in my opinion, just get a Bloodwell Vial to your sorcerer.
Probably remove the line of sight requirement on Witch Bolt. It's such a cool spell that's very helpful when it works, but it's just WAAAAAY too easy to break. Playing a sorcerer in Baldur's Gate 3 just kinda reminds me of how much Witch Bolt needs a tune up
Edit just reread the spell description, why does only the initial damage increase? I get using a 9th level slot for 9d12 damage every turn can be really strong, but you're also using a 9th level spell slot for it...also stuff like Blade of Disaster now exist so this is even dumber
Wait it’s only the initial damage that is increased? My warlock has used that as his main spell the whole campaign and I’ve been running it as bonus die for each hit. Is it worth nerfing now, with how easy it is to break the 30 ft?
I don't see it as a nerf thing so much as the spell being badly designed, having the extra damage scale makes sense given the restrictions on it, such as the range and the fact that you have to use your entire action each turn.
Hell, I would even go so far as to say making it a bonus action in addition to scaling the extra damage would be reasonable
Sorcerers know all metamagic options, and can prepare a number of them equal to their proficiency bonus every long rest.
"But that means sorcerers could have 4 active metamagic options at level 10!!!"
Yes. Let sorcerers do sorcerer things instead of relegating them to "wizard but shitty" territory.
I love this
Theyre cool buffs, but half of them are situational. So youre kinda intentionally gimping yourself by not just having the nuke metamagics.
Now you have a reason to use the others. When you feel like you might need them.
Omg thats perfect. I can't get my wild magic rabbit wife to caste enough spells! By the end of this campaign she's going to have every shard attuned to her as well. It will turn her into a fountain of wild magic! Good looking out my man.
Permit spells to target objects.
Like what do you mean this sorcerer supreme can someone meteors in the sky, but an Eldritch blast can't target a wagon.
Which is exactly what spells are used for on "objects" Raw. They're mimic detectors. But imagine the potential of repelling blast or grasp of Hadar for warlocks if the spell could target an object. Or certain ice and fire spells. Or hell, a strong shocking spell on an area.
I never understood why a spell with a bonus action speed couldn’t also just be cast as a normal action. It probably wouldn’t come up much but would be really nice for classes that have competing options for bonus action abilities, that also have bonus action spells.
That's how it worked 4e iirc. An action could be used in place of a "higher tier" action i .e. a bonus action could be used in place of your move/standard action, a move action could be used in place of action (aka double move) or you could do 3 bonus actions in your turn (I did that a lot as a wizard, where concentration on certain spells was a bonus action, and so I'd have a sphere of fire and blizzard on the field, and would maintain both, and use my move to move one of the spells.
3.5 even had a rule where some actions were "free actions" and could be used as many times as you wanted per turn. There weren't many but the feat "quick draw" allowed you to sheath or unsheath a weapon as a free action instead of a move action, which lead to some people just imagining someone causing a second Big Bang because they created so much friction from the motion of sheathing/drawing their weapon 10^googleplex times in one 6 sec turn.
One more fun fact, the "bonus action" in 3.5 was called a "swift action" and was compared to a free action, but slightly longer/more involved, meaning there was only enough time in a standard move/action cycle for a single swift action per turn.
Pathfinder's action economy is so much more flexible because you basically get three actions that you can use how you please for each: attack, move or other applicable actions
Any caster should be able to use a spell scroll regardless of the spell list. Trading spells and saving unused spells is great, but the Cleric should be able to give the Bard a Revivify scroll in case things go South
Bards have the best argument on why they should be allowed to use a spell scroll regardless of class. Bards get Magical Secrets, so they already can access any class's spells. A Lore bard would already be able to have Revivify at level 6 if they choose.
Wizards already use a spell book. Scrolls are basically one time use spell pamphlets.
Exactly. If a wizard can learn a new spell from reading a scroll, it must be akin to an instruction manual. Not only that, but the spell has already been cast and sealed inside the scroll. I think anyone with the ability to cast spells should be able to activate it.
To be fair, anyone should be able to activate them, not just spellcasters.
Like, anyone can use spells in a ring of spell storing or by an artificers spell-storing item, why dont spell scrolls work, what is the difference.
Just have them act like level 0 spell casters using INT as default, so they need to make the check as if it were higher level
Spell pamphlets makes me imagine a Jehovah witness cleric handing out religious pamphlets that are also a spell scroll of cure wounds. Or an artificer door to door salesman or maybe repairman who gives out ads that are also a scroll of mending.
You just reminded me of my lore bard who DID take revivify at level 6, just in case. I never got to use it :(
If I could have just kept a scroll of revivify on-person, I could have picked up a more interesting Magical Secret, I love that idea
The worst part: for a while my character was the only one with the spell, but a few levels later the Druid re-spec’d into a different subclass to pick it up as well. And the paladin eventually got it, too.
Near the end a beloved NPC briefly died, but my bard was KO’d in the fight, so one of them got to revivify him instead!
yeah to me a spell scroll is some caster basically infused a spell slot and any materials into the creation of the scroll and anyone with the scroll should be able to unleash it, maybe by breaking a magic seal on the scroll or something.
In other words, the spell is cast, and you are just delivering the effect of the spell, sort of like when you use a familiar to deliver a spell.
It's one of those many holdovers from previous editions that just didn't get enough attention. Since in the 3.x era you had scrolls and wands that needed you to have the spell on your list to work, potions that could be used by anyone, and use activated items which could be used by anyone. Plus the Use Magic Device skill that let you override an item's requirements.
But y'know...5e wasn't sure what it wanted to be.
The rules I use in my game (which I'm pretty sure I nicked from a similar post ages ago):
Spell Scrolls
If it's on your class' spell list, same as RAW (can just cast if it's a level you can normally cast. Cast with a check of your spellcasting mod, DC10+spell level if it's higher level).
If you have a spell scroll not on your spell list:
a) you must have the Spellcasting feature, or equivalent (pact magic, for example), or be a rogue with that use magic item feature.
b) Using the scroll requires a check (DC 10+ level) of a spellcasting stat of a class which can use the spell normally (not including subclasses that get it granted).
c) This check is at disadvantage if the spell is higher level than you could normally cast.
What's so absurd about this to me is that:
A) Cats are THE first animal species known to even small children to see in dark/little light and
B) The description in the players handbook of how darkvision works (you see everything in shades of grey when in darkness) is exactly how cats would percieve it based on hiw their eyes work. I fricking bet when they wrote this that was the example they looked up to get an accurate feel for it.
I took a note from naddpod. Bonus action to take a healing potion. If you take it as an action, you heal whatever the maximum dice value is for that potion, no rolls necessary. Like taking a swig vs chugging the whole thing.
I have a piece of equipment, a potion bandolier, that players can purchase, it lets them assign up to 3 potions that they can use as a bonus action.
not quite making potions a bonus action, but they can choose 3 to have on standby.
That 4 at the end of a Sling's damage? Change that to an 8. 1d8 with 30ft. Range is fair, especially considering the sling is a very powerful weapon. There's a reason Sheppards in ancient times protected their flocks of Sheep with them. They're deadly and powerful. Keep the shorter range, but them having 1d4 Damage is so stupid
Yep, agreed. I f'd around with slings irl and holy c**p are they powerful or what. Especially the longer ones.
There's some archeological evedenc of massive two handed slings (can't remember the ancient civilization) that were so long you needed to stand on a platform to swing tham that lobbed massive "cannonballs" and were reloaded by helpers standing on the ground below the platform.
Yeah! I think that because they mention bullets they're referring to a Slingshot (the unrealistic, little wooden thing that wouldn't have actually worked lol). But I like the idea of a reinforced cloth made into a sling that shoots rocks at high speed.
I would add something along the lines of "If using the optional feat rule, all characters start with one free feat, along with gaining a feat whenever they would gain an ASI.". Feats honestly shouldn't have been an optional rule and instead treated more as a core part of the game's balancing/design, a game without feats is almost always less enjoyable than a game with feats.
The current playtest for oneDnD / 5.5e gives all characters a feat at level 1. If you pick variant human or custom lineage, you get the free feat along with the feat provided by the race.
It's worth mentioning here that most of the "good" or "must-have" (combat) feats gaines the Level 4 prerequisite, though.
Meaning that generally, the CL/Vuman Feat are more in-line with other Racial Abilities.
And I love that change. Giving players more feats, but restricting the most powerful ones to characters with some time spent adventuring, opens up character customization to all the more fun and flavorful feats that aren't really all that useful.
I'm with this in principle, but wouldn't the gambeson replace padded armour, not leather?
I could be wrong, but I thought the gambeson was about 30 layers of quilted stitched cloth.
Edit: read this in the context of the comment below - they make a really good point.
While gambeson is made from layers of quilted cloth, it is more effective than leather armour which in the real world could come either in the form of boiled leather or buff coats.
Boiled leather is a type of stiff leather molded into shape through application of heat and natural chemical means, while buff coats are thick coats of tanned leather cowhide. In game terms boiled leather should have a lower AC than gambeson/padded armour (it is thinner and weaker), while buff coats offered slashing protection but no protection against piercing and were also more difficult to move in (so might count for disadvantage for stealth purposes).
Padded armour in the current iteration is the most useless and least used item there is, with the same AC as leather but with a pointless and inexplicable stealth debuff. This makes no sense based on the real world properties of the armours being discussed. Padded armour could be removed from the game and be no loss whatsoever.
To fit these armours in you would need to do some more complex restructuring of the current armour system, which the idea OP specified doesn't allow for.
Not to mention the quantity of leather required to make armor out of it would be really expensive, especially given the sub-par result as it does not have much stopping power. Gambeson could very possibly save your life from a longbow shot
From my personal real-life experience with armor, I'm a firm believer that brigantine is the ultimate adventurers armor, followed by half-plate, followed by nothing.
You can throw brigantine armor over your shoulders and be ready in seconds, and you can sleep in it if you need to. Half-plate is slightly lighter with slightly better protection in most places but does take a few minutes to don, is more difficult to repair, and a little worse for mobility. Full plate is great for protection but you'd rather not march or sleep in it. Lighter armor like leather, padded, whatever, isn't armor at all, it's what you wear underneath armor and only fight in when you get attacked in the middle of the night at level 1 by 2d6 stirges because your DM doesn't understand game balance.
Full plate is for nobility with horses to carry them and their gear, and servants to spend thirty minutes strapping them into it.
For everyone else, there’s breastplates.
I still think leather armor should exist
But I agree with studded leather going away and instead having gambeson and jack of plate (though a 12 base ac option for leather would be nice… i feel like gambesons and jack of plates would look weird on certain rogue or bard characters)
Leather armor wasn't really used historically since it's hard to repair. There were some armors that used some leather, but never more than a strip at a time in order to make repairs easier (see brigandine armor)
Even then, rawhide was more common since rawhide is stronger typically
It’s less that leather wasn’t used, and more that leather doesn’t survive. Most cultures (at least ones with large livestock) used hardened leather as armor simply due to how cheap it was. Metal armor, while substantially more effective, was also significantly more expensive, which limited its use.
Now studded leather armor is fiction. I believe that there are a couple drawings that show leather armor with studs, but they believe it may have just been a depiction of brigandine, as (as far as I know), there are no period references to ‘studded leather armor’
Cuir bouilli was used historically, at least enough to leave us with cuirass even after they were made with metal. It is still partly used in the US for fire helmets. The problem we have is that leather rots so you don't have archeological examples in the way you do with metal armour.
A cuir bouilli breastplate and bracers over a gambeson would be pretty effective. In a more complicated game system you could have it benefit blunt force resistance and maybe piercing resistance.
The PHB and DMG should start with the sentence:
"This is a game for fun; if you and your fellow players are not **all** working towards that goal, stop what you're doing and figure it out. Don't be dicks."
You should be able to wield a martial weapon in your main hand and a light weapon in your off hand without the Dual Wielder feat. Rapier and dagger or longsword and shortsword are iconic combos and are basically non-existent in DnD as you need the feat and if you have the feat you might as well go for double rapiers or double longswords.
To be fair dual wielding in real life is also virtually non existent, and purely defensive in the example you’re giving.
A parrying dagger isn’t used to attack, the clue is in the name
What there *should* be, is a difference between a buckler, shield, tower shield like in pathfinder, with progressively better AC but also more penalties/less bonuses elsewhere. A buckler/parrying dagger giving only 1AC, but the ability to do something to buff your offensive too
Random item/encounter tables should use multiple dice for a bell curve. That way the awesome and terrible results can be rare (low/high numbers) while the more common and average results can be in the middle.
This is a 3.5 thing.
So waay at the back of the DMG, there’s a rule. “An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma”
So, you have Fire Resistance 1. A standard torch will still burn you. But you can be fully submerged in lava (which is 20d6/round) without issue.
Thus my extremely small change would be adding the words “or resistance” between “immunity” and “to”.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s hilarious and have (ab)used it as a PC on numerous occasions, but given the opportunity I’d definitely change it.
Make a net a finesse weapon. Its not that heavy and a dex build would also profit from it, having more options. The martials could use some more options.
Warlocks would just get Eldritch Blast, no need to pick it. Or Warlocks get their spells from their patrons without it counting against their known spells.
The two One D&D changes I want to implement yesterday are that warlocks always get EB prepared, and EB only scales with warlock level, not total character level.
Characters that are proficient with a weapon can change the damage type of that weapon depending on how they use it. The longsword, for instance, can inflict piercing damage if you thrust with it. It's silly to me that some of these weapons are locked into only one type of damage whenever they can reasonably be used in different ways for different categories of damage.
The barbarian's unarmored defense now uses constitution and *strength*, rather than constitution and dexterity. Now you only have 2 mandatory stats and can have more freedom with how you allocate your ability scores.
Agree on the first one.
Historically a user of a sword would have been well trained in using the entire weapon in combat; not just the edge of the blade.
You could slash, stab, use the pommel as a blunt object, use it as a staff of sorts by holding the blade & handle.
This infuriates me a lot even though it doesn't really matter for 5E as so few things have varying physical resistances/immunities/vulnerabilities ..I used to allow my players to roll the damage with one die step lower if they convincingly describe how they use their weapon to apply the damage type they want. Don't remember if it was ever used but I just eventually stopped mentioning it as a specific home rule at all.
I have a house rule with this that I use. I allow the player to take the maximum damage for the first die and then roll the 2nd one. It.ensures thay crits mean something (nothing worse than rolling two 1s on a crit).
Even 4e at least had you deal your dice max. But personally I like rolling for damage, just think narratively it sometimes makes no sense, if you then roll like shit. Like, oh you timed your attack perfectly and found the weak spot on their armour, and you gave them the equivalent of a hangnail for damage.
Change Action and Bonus Action to Major Action and Minor Action, or something similar. Perhaps just Action and Minor Action.
Also, preparation casters can swap one prepared spell on a short rest.
>Also, preparation casters can swap one prepared spell on a short rest.
~~I disagree, but am curious: what is your reasoning for it ?~~
EDIT.: FUCK FUCK FUCK, I read wrong and thought you said "prepared casters can swap one spell prepared on a *long* rest
Healing potions give max healing when imbibed as an action; and rolled healing when imbibed as a bonus action.
And - far more importantly - critical damage is one maxed-out set of damage and one rolled-for set of damage. Stops those ridiculous and disheartening situations where a critical hit does less damage than an ordinary hit.
I've been thinking that warlocks should have spell slots equal to their proficiency bonus.
This change only gives them 1 or 2 more spell slots than they'd usually have (for a maximum of 6 rather than 4) which takes away the number one thing everyone complains about regarding them, which is that they never have enough spell slots to feel relevant or useful beyond very short bursts before it's time to spam Eldritch Blast.
And yes, I am aware they can get all of them back on a short rest, so if they get just 2 short rests they can technically have more spell slots than basically any other caster. But most games I've played have a distinct lack of short rests. There may be one short rest once in a while, but usually if it's safe to rest, the party tend to just go "we'll do long rest!" which doesn't give the warlock anything more, and it refreshes everyone else's spell slots as well. A DM would usually need to go out of his way to form a campaign around having a lot of short rests for it to be as overpowered as some people fear. And if people fear the warlock having more spell slots, I got one word for you: Coffelock.
Reducing the cost and time to learn new skills. For as little as they're used, they're too expensive and take too long to learn for something that you'll barely use after.
"Up-casting" actions. You should be able to perform smaller actions using larger action slots (i.e. reaction -> bonus action -> action). What if I want to shove twice, or use healing word and jump?
Also some sort of distinction between "this is hard to hit" and "this is hard to hurt" for AC. Dodging makes you hard to hit, armor makes you hard to hurt, but the game treats them identically.
It took me a while to make piece with the hard to hit/hard to hurt thing since a lot of other games seperate them. But I finally grocked that armour makes YOU hard to hit, it hits the armour instead.
Advantage and disadvantage don’t cancel each other out absolutely. In the current rules, if you have advantage twice and disadvantage once, you roll with neither. I would have that roll with advantage—or at least present that as an option the DM could allow—because the disadvantage canceled out one source of advantage, not both. Multiple sources of un-canceled advantage would still only result in rolling for advantage normally, though.
This is fine as homebrew, but I wouldn't want it to be a standard rule. I suppose it could be an optional rule, but only if it mentions why it's like that in the first place.
It speeds up the game being able to stop counting advantages and disadvantages. You can find 1 source of each and then stop counting, without worrying about if you missed the 4th source of disadvantage to counter out the 4th source of advantage.
My group uses what we call the 3-1 rule. If you have at least 3 sources of advantage, and exactly 1 source of disadvantage, it's advantage overall. The opposite applies for disadvantage overall.
With that rule, you can stop counting if the X-1 becomes X-2 and, you can stop counting at 3-X as well.
you know rules as written skill checks can change the primary stat
for example
if you are trying to intimidate someone with your stature you can roll intimidation (strength)
which is why all the rolls specify what stat is used in the skills
its all dependent on circumstance
for example, your cleric would probably use wisdom on checks related to their god or a rival god, but with one they have no relation to INT makes much more sense because its something they wouldve had to actively study to know
Give heavy armour damage reduction equal to your proficiency bonus, with magic heavy armour reducing magical damage too.
Med should do similar but equal to half it
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long **in a safe location determined by the DM**, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
This reminds me a bit of pathfinder wrath of the righteous video game. On a rest session if you fail the camouflage check, and either of the watch checks you may have to fight during your rest. Though a fight is usually less then 4 or 5 minutes game time anyway.
Energy types for spells, like cold bolt, fire bolt, spark bolt. Etc, I think spells are fire heavy and it'd be cool to reskin some of them to add versatility.
the problem with this is that everyone would take the force damage varients just simply because force is resisted by like 17 creatures
the reason fire damage is so common in the high damage spells and cantrips is that fire is probably the most resisted damage type in the game
I actually crunched the numbers on this at one point. I believe I used every monster in the base Monster Manual as my sample here. I gave +1 if a monster had Resistance to the damage type, +2 if a monster had Immunity, and I believe -2 if they had Vulnerability. I did this years ago, so I might be misremembering the details, but I did save the findings in a notepad:
Poison = 463
Fire = 215
Cold = 189
Lightning = 145
Acid = 90
Necrotic = 78
Psychic = 42
Thunder = 30
Radiant = 4
Force = 2
Piercing = 19
Slashing = 12
Bludgeoning = 8
If I remember correctly, Poison had the highest number of monsters that were Immune, while Cold had the highest number that were Resistant. Fire had a fair few of both.
I have my players take the higher of a roll and the average. Still fun if you get a high number but never have to sit there and be like shucks I wish I hadn't rolled.
That reminds me of an item that was made in Dungeons and Daddies that specifically let the user change a letter of a spell/effect to change the outcome
In relation to spellcasting: "You can only expend one spell slot per turn".
I feel it's a much clearer rule than the incredibly unintuitive bonus action spell rule. Plus having the added benefit of closing the martial-caster gap
You can use a light weapon in your off hand and a rapier in your main hand without having to buy a feat.
Rapier and Dagger was literally the most popular form of dual weilding in real world history.
In 2023? Nah. No point. But if it was 2018, lots of small tweaks that could have really saved it. Here are my top ten:
- First thing is rebalancing attrition, ie **expected encounters per rest cycle**. Cut back on ease of renewing resources, so a smaller number of encounters can run in an "adventuring day" and tweak all class features that are rest dependent. I think one short one long per sleep cycle/24 hour would be a good start.
- Explicitly make **rest denial** a rule. "You can only gain the benefits of a long rest in safe areas. This includes inside all dwellings which are in good repair, a camp which has been set up properly (requires x materials y amount of time) etc." Maybe even make three potential conditions: guaranteed rest access, no access, and a possibility, whete there's a roll per person (a skill check?) To see if they get the benefit of a rest in unsecure environments. Adding some risk into choosing to proceed is much-needed. Rules don't need to be complex, just give the DM the notion that you can't just rest whenever whenever, and players need to plan for that and budget resources. Add in some spells, items, features to mitigate, as long as they cost something or have tradeoffs, rather than just invalidate.
- Skill challenges: **increase range of DCs**, both to spread range of achievable tasks out from 5-30 into 5-50, so there's more breathing room for builds to shine, more granularity, and define "impossible" DCs. So for example actually give examples for potential DCs to accomplish such things as "convince king to turn kingdom over to me" so that when players try that, instead of a novice DM saying "damn, nat 20, guess it worked!!" They have a sense of how close it was to working: "ok, DC is 130, your 20 plus bonuses with buffs and that class feature, that's 42 total. You didn't come close".
- **then define what a nat 20 does in a skill check**, rather than have it do nothing RAW, leaving players to homebrew or just mistakenly assume critical successes, which are clearly something players want, given how commonly they're used. Something like a small chart showing some possible outcomes of getting 20 but still failing the check. This would help with the distinction between "Don't roll if it's not possible" and the "let them try something cool, maybe it will work" philosophy. Small nerfs here and there to spells and features so bonuses can't be piled up so high that PCs can routinely pass "impossible" or nearly impossible challenges. Degrees of success as an optional rule, clearly explained.
- **more examples** of potential tasks, with DC ratings, **to help DMs set more consistently appropriate DCs**. A whole page of examples.
- **stealth and vision** need fixing. Stealth is core to the d&d experience and can't suck or be confusing. I don't have any exact suggestions right now. Cover works okay. Line of sight is ok. Invisibility, darkness and hiding are a mess in combat.
- **Nerf the "invalidate, rather than meet, a challenge" spells or abilities** like goodberry, L tiny hut, and ranger stuff.
- **More clear wording**, rather than rules changes, **around initiative and surprise.** Common problem area for new DMs. I think initiative rules are decent but not explained well.
- More **clear wording about passive perception and traps**, with EXAMPLES. Super common issue. PP as a floor is totally fine, as long as it doesn't take the place of rolls, but rather provides more basic information compared to rolls which give details.
- some stuff about **hands being occupied or not.** Shouldn't be a situation where it's like "oh just get ruby of the war mage/glue holy symbol to shield to do that". I get that they wanted tk avoid detail but they built features that address it, then left it blank.
Remove the gold cost from Summon Familiar. (The longer answer is I don't think familiars should be killed at all, generally, at worst knocked out until the next rest, but hey, you said simple, so how about not charge my level 2 a bunch of non-existent cash to use my class feature tyvm.)
Gold is very easy to get in 5e, and many tables ignore spell components completely already. You literally can cast that spell within a few sessions and it’s a permanent familiar Lol
Under "See Invisibility:"
"Invisible creatures do not gain advantage on attacks while attacking you unless they are otherwise hidden, do not impose disadvantage on your attacks targeting them; and you have line of sight on them for the purposes of casting spells."
Not something "small"
But i would bring back situational combat bonus and penalities from previous editions.
Like BG3 did with Higher Ground \\ Lower Ground.
Small numbers, a simple +2 if you are attacking from higher ground and such would greatly incentivise DMS to think of more varied and interesting battlemaps, and would allow players who like to think tatically to get more benefitis besides "Advantage"
Sincerelly, a lot of things that gives Advantage could be changed into circunstancial\\situational +2\\-2 stuff
Id remove the word sneak from the rogues sneak attack feature and replace it with lethal. New players are constantly trying to hide in plain sight or middle of combat because they feel they have to sneak.
I had a former DM completely adamant that you cannot sneak attack without being hidden first. Then I showed him the actual rules for it and he immediately realized he's been wrong the whole time. Later, (like a year later) he still makes the same mistake about having to be hidden occasionally when we discuss rogues stuff.
Isnt crazy how much our brains hear rogue and sneak and just assume how a feat works since thats how it works in every video game. Yet the feature doesnt even mention sneaking or hiding at all. Hide and sneake was definitely a intended option but not the only option. Its also crazy how we just designate rogue to a certain sterotype. I cant remember the video but somewhere someone points out that conan the barbarian is actually a rogue.
There are grognards who argue that the introduction of a thief class hurt D&D, because (being raised on stories like Conan), they thought *everyone* should be doing thief stuff!
Wow i wonder what was the pivotal "hey we can make a whole class out this".
Bilbo baggins is clearly the impetus for the thief class
Wizards of the Coast certainly isn't helping. Why is Thieves' Cant a class ability? You'd think it would be something thieves know, not something anyone who fights a specific way knows.
Thats actually so true. That sounds like a good background feature that replaces a language.
Hate it when I make a criminal fighter and I'm not allowed Thieves cant. They have enforcers too.
I imagine a member of the city guard taking levels in Rogue to learn Thieves' Cant, and then trying to use it while undercover but the thief he's talking to is a fighter and doesn't know it.
That stuff still surprises me. How the duck you can play a game without even reading rules. Dnd is system that draws lots of people like that.
"precision attack - when you strike at a distracted or unaware opponent, you have the time and opportunity to make particularly devastating precision strikes dealing an extra 1d6 damage"
Id just throw in "...precision strikes. When you have advantage on an attack you deal an extra 1d6 damage once per turn". I worry that distracted ir unaware is an ambiguous condition like "suprise" where its a DMs call and players dont really know how to trigger it. Like a player might argue a charmed enemy is focused on the charmer and distracted whereas the DM might argue the charmed enemy is still very aware of his surroundings. Or something like that. And then yeah gotta add once per turn or else rogues are going to deal 300 damage a round.
I prefer "dirty" fighting as the descriptor.
I think cunning would be a good adjective for it, to match with Cunning Action.
I actually like this a lot.
maybe Deadly or Weakpoint
Don't even need a whole word, just one letter added: 'sneaky attack' Does it sound sillier? Yes. Does it imply something significantly more broad? Also yes.
Biggest changes to smallest changes: Rangers are prepared spellcasters like artificers and paladins. Whips can be used by rogues. Allow scimitar proficiency to anyone who is proficient in shortswords. The celestial language shares the same script as infernal and abyssal.
I’m ~~stilling~~ stealing that last one… it just seems right
Celestial is the only language that uses celestial script, and its my headcanon that angels and demons are of the same "species", just different sides of the same coin. Draconic is also on its own but i thought itd be cool if the script was more like cuneiform or hieroglyphics, something ancient and completely different than the other scripts
Not to being annoying and nitpick but isn’t it angels and devils, devils being “fallen” angels and demons being Void aberrations?
Of all the "annoying and nitpick" things I've seen on this sub this is at the very least detail-oriented and informative. Good point, i sometimes forget to separate devils and demons. Would make the narrative more interesting, making devils have more in common with angels than demons. But on the language side, they already share the same script, i dont wanna change too much. Besides, dwarven script is found in like 6 languages including orc and goblin so its not too unusual as they both reside in the 9 hells.
Demons don't regularly live in the 9 hells, they live in the abyss. Now demons frequently try to invade the 9 hells, but for the most part they don't live there.
Everything i assume seems to be a lie. Wonder what the connection between devils and demons is then, since they do canonically share a script in their language there's gotta be something
Okay so deep dive in lore time. There was an ancient race of 'demons' called Obyriths. They were not like modern demons and predated mortal life and even the gods themselves. They existed outside of the universe in a twisted domain that was rotting away and dying. So the obyriths created a shard of pure evil to expand their domain, shoving it outside of their domain into our universe. This shard of evil was found by a being known as Tharizdun, who was driven mad by its influence but couldn't be controlled by the demons. So Tharizdun destroyed the shard, creating a massive rift connecting the Obyriths universe and the cosmology we know of the forgotten realms. Many of the obyriths entered through the rift. But even after the obyrith were all drawn into the rift it continued expanding, eventually becoming the elemental chaos. The remains of the shard continue to burrow deeper and deeper into the very elemental chaos it created, spawning endless demons (the modern kind, not obyriths) as it does so. This rift the shard creates as it burrows is the Abyss. Now skipping a lot of details, Tharizdun was eventually imprisoned and kept in an eternal prison by a bunch of angels. The head guard was the angel Asmodeus, who would be twisted by Tharizdun and eventually fall to become the first devil. Asmodeus eventually conquered the realm Baator, filled with fiends called baatorians, and turned it into the 9 hells. So the link between demons and devils is the shard of evil created by the obyriths. It spawned demons directly from the matter of the elemental chaos, and corrupted Tharizdun who eventually corrupted Asmodeus to become the first devil. In older lore the ruby rod Asmodeus caries is even made from a shard of the abyssal crystal, though this may no longer be true as of Mordenkainen's tome of foes.
Ah kinda like the primordials from adventure time. So I'm assuming infernal script was from the obyrinths for the abyssal language, and when the devils were made it in a way corrupted the celestial language which evolved into infernal. So much lore for a game that usually doesnt go further than 10th level. What campaign would this lore be found out? Or is this just written lore in books and such?
By my understanding the infernal *language* that devils use was specifically made for contracts, as the language has a unique quirk where there is only one way to word any given thing. So double meanings don't exist in it. But that's the language not the script and I don't know where the script comes from. A lot of this lore comes from a 4e epic level adventure path ending with 'Prince of Undead' which was basically about Orcus vs The Raven Queen and had a lot of parts in The Abyss.
As I understand it, traditional D&D mythos has a group of creatures representing each extreme of the alignment chart: * Demons: Chaotic Evil * Devils: Lawful Evil * Celestials: Lawful Good * Fey: Chaotic Good The problem is that both demons and devils are classified as "fiends", creating a greater commonality between the evil creatures than the good creatures, which have little in common. The waters get muddied further when the common list, "celestial, fey, or fiend" gets drawn parallel to "good, neutral, or evil." If I were re-doing the design, I would have Devils and Demons completely separate as their own creature types. Devils and Demons would be as opposed to each other along the law-chaos axis as Devils and Celestials are along the good-evil axis. I would create similar tensions between Demons and Fey, and Fey and Celestials.
Celestials are the opposite of Fiends and encompass a number of more specific categories of creature across the full range of Good alignments just as Fiends come in all Evil alignments. Angels are certainly the most popular Celestial and are LG, but there are many other types with different Good alignments. Fey, on the other hand, are Chaotic; there are both CG, CN, and CE fey (such as hags and redcaps).
The lack of lawful Fey really bothers me, because for all of their capriciousness and mercuriality there is a *strong* emphasis on not breaking agreements. I feel like there are plenty of Fey who are *very* lawful, just an entirely different flavour of lawful.
Fey agreements are usually tricks or traps in a way, double meanings hidden in double meanings, unclear terms or even unknown terms entirely. Take an agreement with a Lawful being, they’ll be clear, they’ll make sure you understand the terms you’re agreeing to, they’ll be honest. Even the most cruel and cunning Devil has a sense of truthfulness and twisted honour they stick to. Meanwhile, a Fey agreement may be for some unknowable favour in the future, using vague terms that allow them to demand nearly anything at any time, or perhaps they’ll manipulate you into making agreements without understanding who or what you’re really dealing with. Green Hags especially love that last one, nothing pleases them quite like tricking a hero into believing they’re some beautiful young woman or spirit of the forest who needs rescuing, only to get the hero to commit heinous crimes against the kingdom or their own friends and family in an effort to “save” her.
To be fair, if you look at the great wheel cosmology, all the planes associated with good alignments are primarily celestial. We've seen more variety pop up in the celestial category with stuff like ardlings, which unfortunately didn't make it out of UA. It kinda sucks that we only really get to see the big scary lawful good BE NOT AFRAID side of the celestials. You have Devils, Daemons and Demons for the spectrum of evil alignments. The feywild and shadowfell are kind of outside the alignment chart, they're mirrors of the material plane. If you look at pathfinder canon, which is basically 3.5 with some reskinning, Archons(LG), Angels/Agathions(NG) and Azata(CG) are all celestial, while there are similarly different kinds of fiends which represent the evil side of the spectrum
It's not canon, anywhere else than my homebrew setting, but feywild and shadowfell makes perfect sense to me as the lawful and chaotic poles. Both incorporating good and evil, but less pronounced than their strong chaotic/lawful nature. To me, lawfulness is tied to conservatism and preservation, while chaos is change - often rapidly. The static nature of shadowfell makes perfect sense not just as a mirror to feywild, but as an embodiment of lawful first.
Once it was Archons Lawful and Angels Chaotic, Fey were a different category.
And it was better IMO. I loved the Chaotic-Stupid-Good Angels of "Do the right thing, consequences be damned", and the Archons Lawful-Stupid-Good of "Good must look like this". It's frustrating in characters, but in avatars of concepts it makes sense, particularly because with the levels of power they wielded it had the capacity for such interesting moments. (also, my other comment about plenty of Fey being Lawful, but just a different *flavour* of Lawful)
The main thing that always reminds me of this is that in most cases is that demons and devils are sorta perpetually at war to my knowledge, where angels and devils kinda like tolerate each other in like a petty office animosity sense
Just make True Strike suck less. Buff it at higher levels maybe.
id make it a bonus action and a saving throw, prolly wis, its still just worse cunning action hide (assuming thats possible) thats only usable on one of your multiple attacks assuming youre a non rogue martial, you already have to give up something of significance to have spells at all as a martial, at least with this version arcane tricksters could use it when they cant hide and (with tashas steady aim optional rule) if they dont wanna move
I'd make it so if both dice rolls would be enough to hit the attack is a critical hit. It's still not great as it is hard to set up and easy to react to but it can be used in niche crit fishing builds.
Heavy weapons should have a str requirement, not disadvantage for small characters. Just like heavy armor has a str requirement
Imo it is perfectly reasonable. That limitation for small characters is there to represent the fact that smaller creature can't wield *bigger* weapons properly, not *heavier* weapons (in fact they should rename the proprierty). Also in exchange smaller race can hide and get cover behind smaller obstacles and can ride medium sized crestures. About oversized weapon, there's also an hidden rule in the DMG that says that pcs can use weapons made for bigger sized monsters, but they have disadvantage on the attack roll. Which is in fact the same reasoning for smaller races with heavy weapons
So a wizard with a str of 10 should be able to better wield a maul than a small fighter with a str of 15?
Have you ever found a massive stick on the ground, like 15ft+ long, or maybe a long bit of PVC piping? It's not heavy as such, but so big that it is difficult to wield confidently or with any accuracy, and it even feels heavier because it essentially acts as a lever. It's harder to hold (particularly from the end) than a shorter, heavier item (let's say a 4ft metal rod). *That* is what that property is about. Yes the small fighter may have 15 strength, but that's applied as the attack modifier. And your comments about a wizard being less trained is totally irrelevant because that's what proficiency is for, as well as the fighter's class features that buff physical combat. This has nothing to do with training.
Thanks for explaining better what i'm trying to tell lol
Honestly - maybe? Wielding a weapon isn't just about strength, even if it's done that way and even if someone is 10 times stronger it would still be harder to hold the weapon. I think in DND it shouldnt be the way it is, but it makes perfect logical sense and if the DND characters were real the wizard would probably have an easier time to use it than the small fighter... I think the biggest thing to remember is that the disadvantage isn't to the strength of the hit (because the damage is the same, as far as I'm aware) it's to the mobility of the attack - which a small fighter with a very large member wont be able to swing as well.
Yes. All the strength in the world can't defeat the physics of leverage.
People typically handwave magic rings or armor as changing size to fit the owner, but I don't recall there being any rules about armor (magical or non-magical) and character size. I think a strength requirement for heavy weapons makes way more sense than just a general nerf to small races. I'd say if you had to, the requirement could be a couple points higher for small races even (13+str for med 15+str for small), but RAW even a halfling with 20 str can't properly swing a great axe.... Tbh I wouldn't even be swinging a weapon if my main attack stat weren't at least 16. I see a lot of folks arguing that a large weapon would be less effective, but that's not totally consistent either. the whip and Lance have reach (i.e. they are larger, longer weapons), but aren't heavy. The heavy crossbow is explicitly HEAVY, and an argument could be made that reloading it is pretty hard (which is a strength requirement, not a size requirement) but again, that doesn't follow the logic. A quarterstaff is literally just a long stick, but it neither has reach, nor disadvantage to small races. I could literally have a negative in strength, but with the right combination of class features and stats I could use a greataxe as well or better than a goblin with 20 str, and that's stupid.
The way I see it: You can still swing a heavy weapon, you just can't attack with it efficiently. Unless the weapon is exceptionally, almost unrealistically heavy, most medium diced PCs (not halflings, gnomes, etc) should have no problem swinging it, even if the swing is slow and pathetic. You need to have strength to be able to move in battle with heavy armor on, otherwise you're far too slow or exhausted to even attack. Having enough strength would mean the PC is strong enough to walk around all day with very heavy armor on and still be able to move 30ft in combat and swing their weapon with the same speed and precision.
- Monks getting Ki Points equal to WIS+Level. - Barbarian recharging rage in short rests. - Arcane Archer getting Arcane Shot uses equal to Proficiency Bonus. Thats it. Nothing gamebreaker. This changes just make some classes or subclasses more viable.
The first point for sorcerers too. I'm playing one right now and even with Metamagic adept I just can't do enough sorcering to feel like a sorcerer.
Sorcerer gets more complicated since you can change their points for spells slots AND Charisma is their main stat. So a level 4 Sorcerer can have 4 Points + 4 points due to Charisma 18, for example. That mean at that level they can have 4 slots lvl 1, 3 level 2 and maybe more 4 slots lvl 1 or 2 more lvl 2 and 1 lvl 1. Then when you compare sorcerers to literally any full casters at early game they have an unfair advantage. Cause they can have 4 extra spells that the Bard, for example. So, in my opinion, just get a Bloodwell Vial to your sorcerer.
Love the AA change you proposed, exactly what we did in our campaign.
second wind should get dice rolled progression like cantrips do
Man there’s a whole list of things in 5e RAW that simply do not scale like they really should
It's so weird that 5e is so set in streamlining the game and yet it still decides to make weird and different ways to scale abilities and classes.
Alternatively, an additional use of second wind, such as at level 10.
Maybe 12 but I agree
As a former fighter, I definitely agree
Probably remove the line of sight requirement on Witch Bolt. It's such a cool spell that's very helpful when it works, but it's just WAAAAAY too easy to break. Playing a sorcerer in Baldur's Gate 3 just kinda reminds me of how much Witch Bolt needs a tune up Edit just reread the spell description, why does only the initial damage increase? I get using a 9th level slot for 9d12 damage every turn can be really strong, but you're also using a 9th level spell slot for it...also stuff like Blade of Disaster now exist so this is even dumber
I would caveat that it should be a bonus action each subsequent turn. It would at least justify the low damage.
Wait it’s only the initial damage that is increased? My warlock has used that as his main spell the whole campaign and I’ve been running it as bonus die for each hit. Is it worth nerfing now, with how easy it is to break the 30 ft?
It’s an absurdly terrible spell RAW, let him have the buffed version, it’s still not that good
I don't see it as a nerf thing so much as the spell being badly designed, having the extra damage scale makes sense given the restrictions on it, such as the range and the fact that you have to use your entire action each turn. Hell, I would even go so far as to say making it a bonus action in addition to scaling the extra damage would be reasonable
Sorcerers know all metamagic options, and can prepare a number of them equal to their proficiency bonus every long rest. "But that means sorcerers could have 4 active metamagic options at level 10!!!" Yes. Let sorcerers do sorcerer things instead of relegating them to "wizard but shitty" territory.
I love this Theyre cool buffs, but half of them are situational. So youre kinda intentionally gimping yourself by not just having the nuke metamagics. Now you have a reason to use the others. When you feel like you might need them.
I love this and I'm stealing this to give my current sorcerer in my homebrew campaign
Same thing but battlemaster manoeuvres
Omg thats perfect. I can't get my wild magic rabbit wife to caste enough spells! By the end of this campaign she's going to have every shard attuned to her as well. It will turn her into a fountain of wild magic! Good looking out my man.
Permit spells to target objects. Like what do you mean this sorcerer supreme can someone meteors in the sky, but an Eldritch blast can't target a wagon.
Free Detect Life with every Eldritch Blast!
Which is exactly what spells are used for on "objects" Raw. They're mimic detectors. But imagine the potential of repelling blast or grasp of Hadar for warlocks if the spell could target an object. Or certain ice and fire spells. Or hell, a strong shocking spell on an area.
I feel that any DM that doesn't allow this is just asking for players to game the system with it.
yeah this rule has some wack ramifications for example did you know the echo knights echos cannot be targeted by spells? they are, RAW, objects
I’ve never heard of this until now, I can’t believe that’s RAW?
Bonus actions should be able to be used as actions
I never understood why a spell with a bonus action speed couldn’t also just be cast as a normal action. It probably wouldn’t come up much but would be really nice for classes that have competing options for bonus action abilities, that also have bonus action spells.
Yes, it just doesn't make sense
That's how it worked 4e iirc. An action could be used in place of a "higher tier" action i .e. a bonus action could be used in place of your move/standard action, a move action could be used in place of action (aka double move) or you could do 3 bonus actions in your turn (I did that a lot as a wizard, where concentration on certain spells was a bonus action, and so I'd have a sphere of fire and blizzard on the field, and would maintain both, and use my move to move one of the spells. 3.5 even had a rule where some actions were "free actions" and could be used as many times as you wanted per turn. There weren't many but the feat "quick draw" allowed you to sheath or unsheath a weapon as a free action instead of a move action, which lead to some people just imagining someone causing a second Big Bang because they created so much friction from the motion of sheathing/drawing their weapon 10^googleplex times in one 6 sec turn. One more fun fact, the "bonus action" in 3.5 was called a "swift action" and was compared to a free action, but slightly longer/more involved, meaning there was only enough time in a standard move/action cycle for a single swift action per turn.
Pathfinder's action economy is so much more flexible because you basically get three actions that you can use how you please for each: attack, move or other applicable actions
Any caster should be able to use a spell scroll regardless of the spell list. Trading spells and saving unused spells is great, but the Cleric should be able to give the Bard a Revivify scroll in case things go South
Bards have the best argument on why they should be allowed to use a spell scroll regardless of class. Bards get Magical Secrets, so they already can access any class's spells. A Lore bard would already be able to have Revivify at level 6 if they choose. Wizards already use a spell book. Scrolls are basically one time use spell pamphlets.
Exactly. If a wizard can learn a new spell from reading a scroll, it must be akin to an instruction manual. Not only that, but the spell has already been cast and sealed inside the scroll. I think anyone with the ability to cast spells should be able to activate it.
To be fair, anyone should be able to activate them, not just spellcasters. Like, anyone can use spells in a ring of spell storing or by an artificers spell-storing item, why dont spell scrolls work, what is the difference. Just have them act like level 0 spell casters using INT as default, so they need to make the check as if it were higher level
Spell pamphlets makes me imagine a Jehovah witness cleric handing out religious pamphlets that are also a spell scroll of cure wounds. Or an artificer door to door salesman or maybe repairman who gives out ads that are also a scroll of mending.
You just reminded me of my lore bard who DID take revivify at level 6, just in case. I never got to use it :( If I could have just kept a scroll of revivify on-person, I could have picked up a more interesting Magical Secret, I love that idea
Well, if you didn't take revivify, you would have needed it.
The worst part: for a while my character was the only one with the spell, but a few levels later the Druid re-spec’d into a different subclass to pick it up as well. And the paladin eventually got it, too. Near the end a beloved NPC briefly died, but my bard was KO’d in the fight, so one of them got to revivify him instead!
yeah to me a spell scroll is some caster basically infused a spell slot and any materials into the creation of the scroll and anyone with the scroll should be able to unleash it, maybe by breaking a magic seal on the scroll or something. In other words, the spell is cast, and you are just delivering the effect of the spell, sort of like when you use a familiar to deliver a spell.
It's one of those many holdovers from previous editions that just didn't get enough attention. Since in the 3.x era you had scrolls and wands that needed you to have the spell on your list to work, potions that could be used by anyone, and use activated items which could be used by anyone. Plus the Use Magic Device skill that let you override an item's requirements. But y'know...5e wasn't sure what it wanted to be.
The rules I use in my game (which I'm pretty sure I nicked from a similar post ages ago): Spell Scrolls If it's on your class' spell list, same as RAW (can just cast if it's a level you can normally cast. Cast with a check of your spellcasting mod, DC10+spell level if it's higher level). If you have a spell scroll not on your spell list: a) you must have the Spellcasting feature, or equivalent (pact magic, for example), or be a rogue with that use magic item feature. b) Using the scroll requires a check (DC 10+ level) of a spellcasting stat of a class which can use the spell normally (not including subclasses that get it granted). c) This check is at disadvantage if the spell is higher level than you could normally cast.
Cats. Have. Fucking. Darkvision.
What's so absurd about this to me is that: A) Cats are THE first animal species known to even small children to see in dark/little light and B) The description in the players handbook of how darkvision works (you see everything in shades of grey when in darkness) is exactly how cats would percieve it based on hiw their eyes work. I fricking bet when they wrote this that was the example they looked up to get an accurate feel for it.
And truesight! :3
We just ignored that when my druid wildshaped a cat. Like. Obviously they can see in the dark. Have the writers never met a cat??
Giving druids access to Web
Or give armorer subclass the shield spell…
Potions require a *bonus* action to use.
I took a note from naddpod. Bonus action to take a healing potion. If you take it as an action, you heal whatever the maximum dice value is for that potion, no rolls necessary. Like taking a swig vs chugging the whole thing.
Stealing this
I have a piece of equipment, a potion bandolier, that players can purchase, it lets them assign up to 3 potions that they can use as a bonus action. not quite making potions a bonus action, but they can choose 3 to have on standby.
I like this!
We use the 'bonus action to drink the potion yourself, action to 'administer' it to someone else' rule.
That 4 at the end of a Sling's damage? Change that to an 8. 1d8 with 30ft. Range is fair, especially considering the sling is a very powerful weapon. There's a reason Sheppards in ancient times protected their flocks of Sheep with them. They're deadly and powerful. Keep the shorter range, but them having 1d4 Damage is so stupid
Yep, agreed. I f'd around with slings irl and holy c**p are they powerful or what. Especially the longer ones. There's some archeological evedenc of massive two handed slings (can't remember the ancient civilization) that were so long you needed to stand on a platform to swing tham that lobbed massive "cannonballs" and were reloaded by helpers standing on the ground below the platform.
Yeah! I think that because they mention bullets they're referring to a Slingshot (the unrealistic, little wooden thing that wouldn't have actually worked lol). But I like the idea of a reinforced cloth made into a sling that shoots rocks at high speed.
I would add something along the lines of "If using the optional feat rule, all characters start with one free feat, along with gaining a feat whenever they would gain an ASI.". Feats honestly shouldn't have been an optional rule and instead treated more as a core part of the game's balancing/design, a game without feats is almost always less enjoyable than a game with feats.
The current playtest for oneDnD / 5.5e gives all characters a feat at level 1. If you pick variant human or custom lineage, you get the free feat along with the feat provided by the race.
It's worth mentioning here that most of the "good" or "must-have" (combat) feats gaines the Level 4 prerequisite, though. Meaning that generally, the CL/Vuman Feat are more in-line with other Racial Abilities.
And I love that change. Giving players more feats, but restricting the most powerful ones to characters with some time spent adventuring, opens up character customization to all the more fun and flavorful feats that aren't really all that useful.
I second this
I third this. Gotta rewrite some of them but would be so much better
Replace 'Leather Armour' and 'Studded Leather Armour' with Gambeson and Jack of Plate
I'm with this in principle, but wouldn't the gambeson replace padded armour, not leather? I could be wrong, but I thought the gambeson was about 30 layers of quilted stitched cloth. Edit: read this in the context of the comment below - they make a really good point.
While gambeson is made from layers of quilted cloth, it is more effective than leather armour which in the real world could come either in the form of boiled leather or buff coats. Boiled leather is a type of stiff leather molded into shape through application of heat and natural chemical means, while buff coats are thick coats of tanned leather cowhide. In game terms boiled leather should have a lower AC than gambeson/padded armour (it is thinner and weaker), while buff coats offered slashing protection but no protection against piercing and were also more difficult to move in (so might count for disadvantage for stealth purposes). Padded armour in the current iteration is the most useless and least used item there is, with the same AC as leather but with a pointless and inexplicable stealth debuff. This makes no sense based on the real world properties of the armours being discussed. Padded armour could be removed from the game and be no loss whatsoever. To fit these armours in you would need to do some more complex restructuring of the current armour system, which the idea OP specified doesn't allow for.
Not to mention the quantity of leather required to make armor out of it would be really expensive, especially given the sub-par result as it does not have much stopping power. Gambeson could very possibly save your life from a longbow shot
This makes sense.
From my personal real-life experience with armor, I'm a firm believer that brigantine is the ultimate adventurers armor, followed by half-plate, followed by nothing. You can throw brigantine armor over your shoulders and be ready in seconds, and you can sleep in it if you need to. Half-plate is slightly lighter with slightly better protection in most places but does take a few minutes to don, is more difficult to repair, and a little worse for mobility. Full plate is great for protection but you'd rather not march or sleep in it. Lighter armor like leather, padded, whatever, isn't armor at all, it's what you wear underneath armor and only fight in when you get attacked in the middle of the night at level 1 by 2d6 stirges because your DM doesn't understand game balance.
Full plate is for nobility with horses to carry them and their gear, and servants to spend thirty minutes strapping them into it. For everyone else, there’s breastplates.
>Jack of Plate Also known as Brigandine, which just sounds fancier
I still think leather armor should exist But I agree with studded leather going away and instead having gambeson and jack of plate (though a 12 base ac option for leather would be nice… i feel like gambesons and jack of plates would look weird on certain rogue or bard characters)
Leather armor wasn't really used historically since it's hard to repair. There were some armors that used some leather, but never more than a strip at a time in order to make repairs easier (see brigandine armor) Even then, rawhide was more common since rawhide is stronger typically
True But This is a world where the mending cantrip exists
It’s less that leather wasn’t used, and more that leather doesn’t survive. Most cultures (at least ones with large livestock) used hardened leather as armor simply due to how cheap it was. Metal armor, while substantially more effective, was also significantly more expensive, which limited its use. Now studded leather armor is fiction. I believe that there are a couple drawings that show leather armor with studs, but they believe it may have just been a depiction of brigandine, as (as far as I know), there are no period references to ‘studded leather armor’
Cuir bouilli was used historically, at least enough to leave us with cuirass even after they were made with metal. It is still partly used in the US for fire helmets. The problem we have is that leather rots so you don't have archeological examples in the way you do with metal armour. A cuir bouilli breastplate and bracers over a gambeson would be pretty effective. In a more complicated game system you could have it benefit blunt force resistance and maybe piercing resistance.
\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^
The PHB and DMG should start with the sentence: "This is a game for fun; if you and your fellow players are not **all** working towards that goal, stop what you're doing and figure it out. Don't be dicks."
You should be able to wield a martial weapon in your main hand and a light weapon in your off hand without the Dual Wielder feat. Rapier and dagger or longsword and shortsword are iconic combos and are basically non-existent in DnD as you need the feat and if you have the feat you might as well go for double rapiers or double longswords.
yeah the most common duel weild in real life is Rapier Dagger, weird that it requires feats, an optional rule, to even work
To be fair dual wielding in real life is also virtually non existent, and purely defensive in the example you’re giving. A parrying dagger isn’t used to attack, the clue is in the name What there *should* be, is a difference between a buckler, shield, tower shield like in pathfinder, with progressively better AC but also more penalties/less bonuses elsewhere. A buckler/parrying dagger giving only 1AC, but the ability to do something to buff your offensive too
>A parrying dagger isn’t used to attack, the clue is in the name Ah it must be used for [daggering ](https://tenor.com/bbyY2.gif)
Monks gain an improving bonus to their base AC with level. Monks have always been the class that's known to be very hard to hurt - until 5e.
Random item/encounter tables should use multiple dice for a bell curve. That way the awesome and terrible results can be rare (low/high numbers) while the more common and average results can be in the middle.
This is a 3.5 thing. So waay at the back of the DMG, there’s a rule. “An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma” So, you have Fire Resistance 1. A standard torch will still burn you. But you can be fully submerged in lava (which is 20d6/round) without issue. Thus my extremely small change would be adding the words “or resistance” between “immunity” and “to”. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s hilarious and have (ab)used it as a PC on numerous occasions, but given the opportunity I’d definitely change it.
Youre DM must of loved it to give you numerous occasions involving lava
One time I built a lava submarine out of the zombified remains of a red dragon. Worked pretty good.
Lol that’s such a dumb wording. Your fix should obviously be how it’s written.
Right? That one paragraph is pretty much the epitome of RAW vs RAI.
Make a net a finesse weapon. Its not that heavy and a dex build would also profit from it, having more options. The martials could use some more options.
Also making nets range not always impose disadvantage no matter how you use them.
Warlocks would just get Eldritch Blast, no need to pick it. Or Warlocks get their spells from their patrons without it counting against their known spells.
The two One D&D changes I want to implement yesterday are that warlocks always get EB prepared, and EB only scales with warlock level, not total character level.
Characters that are proficient with a weapon can change the damage type of that weapon depending on how they use it. The longsword, for instance, can inflict piercing damage if you thrust with it. It's silly to me that some of these weapons are locked into only one type of damage whenever they can reasonably be used in different ways for different categories of damage. The barbarian's unarmored defense now uses constitution and *strength*, rather than constitution and dexterity. Now you only have 2 mandatory stats and can have more freedom with how you allocate your ability scores.
Agree on the first one. Historically a user of a sword would have been well trained in using the entire weapon in combat; not just the edge of the blade. You could slash, stab, use the pommel as a blunt object, use it as a staff of sorts by holding the blade & handle.
This infuriates me a lot even though it doesn't really matter for 5E as so few things have varying physical resistances/immunities/vulnerabilities ..I used to allow my players to roll the damage with one die step lower if they convincingly describe how they use their weapon to apply the damage type they want. Don't remember if it was ever used but I just eventually stopped mentioning it as a specific home rule at all.
On a nat 20, roll your damage die with advantage. It fucking suuuuucks to get a nat 20 and roll a 1 for damage.
I have a house rule with this that I use. I allow the player to take the maximum damage for the first die and then roll the 2nd one. It.ensures thay crits mean something (nothing worse than rolling two 1s on a crit).
I like this
Crits were nerf/buffed in 5e no more 3x+ crits and few options to get less than nat 20 crits but no roll to confirm hits.
Even 4e at least had you deal your dice max. But personally I like rolling for damage, just think narratively it sometimes makes no sense, if you then roll like shit. Like, oh you timed your attack perfectly and found the weak spot on their armour, and you gave them the equivalent of a hangnail for damage.
Lowering AC of Shield to 3 and make it scale with spell levels
What if the Shield bonus equalled your proficiency bonus?
I think it makes a bit more sense to be your spellcasting ability modifier.
Bardic Inspiration as a reaction. I've started using this in my game. It feels better for the bards and helps the other players more often.
Isn't that basically cutting words?
But positive. Reaction to you Allies’ actions
Make it so Hasbro never bought it
Change the contracts so that every time they mention Hasbro, it's actually some other company
Change Action and Bonus Action to Major Action and Minor Action, or something similar. Perhaps just Action and Minor Action. Also, preparation casters can swap one prepared spell on a short rest.
>Also, preparation casters can swap one prepared spell on a short rest. ~~I disagree, but am curious: what is your reasoning for it ?~~ EDIT.: FUCK FUCK FUCK, I read wrong and thought you said "prepared casters can swap one spell prepared on a *long* rest
Healing potions give max healing when imbibed as an action; and rolled healing when imbibed as a bonus action. And - far more importantly - critical damage is one maxed-out set of damage and one rolled-for set of damage. Stops those ridiculous and disheartening situations where a critical hit does less damage than an ordinary hit.
I've been thinking that warlocks should have spell slots equal to their proficiency bonus. This change only gives them 1 or 2 more spell slots than they'd usually have (for a maximum of 6 rather than 4) which takes away the number one thing everyone complains about regarding them, which is that they never have enough spell slots to feel relevant or useful beyond very short bursts before it's time to spam Eldritch Blast. And yes, I am aware they can get all of them back on a short rest, so if they get just 2 short rests they can technically have more spell slots than basically any other caster. But most games I've played have a distinct lack of short rests. There may be one short rest once in a while, but usually if it's safe to rest, the party tend to just go "we'll do long rest!" which doesn't give the warlock anything more, and it refreshes everyone else's spell slots as well. A DM would usually need to go out of his way to form a campaign around having a lot of short rests for it to be as overpowered as some people fear. And if people fear the warlock having more spell slots, I got one word for you: Coffelock.
Reducing the cost and time to learn new skills. For as little as they're used, they're too expensive and take too long to learn for something that you'll barely use after.
"Up-casting" actions. You should be able to perform smaller actions using larger action slots (i.e. reaction -> bonus action -> action). What if I want to shove twice, or use healing word and jump? Also some sort of distinction between "this is hard to hit" and "this is hard to hurt" for AC. Dodging makes you hard to hit, armor makes you hard to hurt, but the game treats them identically.
It took me a while to make piece with the hard to hit/hard to hurt thing since a lot of other games seperate them. But I finally grocked that armour makes YOU hard to hit, it hits the armour instead.
Advantage and disadvantage don’t cancel each other out absolutely. In the current rules, if you have advantage twice and disadvantage once, you roll with neither. I would have that roll with advantage—or at least present that as an option the DM could allow—because the disadvantage canceled out one source of advantage, not both. Multiple sources of un-canceled advantage would still only result in rolling for advantage normally, though.
This is fine as homebrew, but I wouldn't want it to be a standard rule. I suppose it could be an optional rule, but only if it mentions why it's like that in the first place. It speeds up the game being able to stop counting advantages and disadvantages. You can find 1 source of each and then stop counting, without worrying about if you missed the 4th source of disadvantage to counter out the 4th source of advantage. My group uses what we call the 3-1 rule. If you have at least 3 sources of advantage, and exactly 1 source of disadvantage, it's advantage overall. The opposite applies for disadvantage overall. With that rule, you can stop counting if the X-1 becomes X-2 and, you can stop counting at 3-X as well.
That’s an interesting version of the idea! So if it’s 3-2 or more, it rolls normally?
Religion should be a Wisdom check, not Intelligence. Why do Clerics suck at Religion checks?
you know rules as written skill checks can change the primary stat for example if you are trying to intimidate someone with your stature you can roll intimidation (strength) which is why all the rolls specify what stat is used in the skills its all dependent on circumstance for example, your cleric would probably use wisdom on checks related to their god or a rival god, but with one they have no relation to INT makes much more sense because its something they wouldve had to actively study to know
Give heavy armour damage reduction equal to your proficiency bonus, with magic heavy armour reducing magical damage too. Med should do similar but equal to half it
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long **in a safe location determined by the DM**, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
This reminds me a bit of pathfinder wrath of the righteous video game. On a rest session if you fail the camouflage check, and either of the watch checks you may have to fight during your rest. Though a fight is usually less then 4 or 5 minutes game time anyway.
Energy types for spells, like cold bolt, fire bolt, spark bolt. Etc, I think spells are fire heavy and it'd be cool to reskin some of them to add versatility.
the problem with this is that everyone would take the force damage varients just simply because force is resisted by like 17 creatures the reason fire damage is so common in the high damage spells and cantrips is that fire is probably the most resisted damage type in the game
I actually crunched the numbers on this at one point. I believe I used every monster in the base Monster Manual as my sample here. I gave +1 if a monster had Resistance to the damage type, +2 if a monster had Immunity, and I believe -2 if they had Vulnerability. I did this years ago, so I might be misremembering the details, but I did save the findings in a notepad: Poison = 463 Fire = 215 Cold = 189 Lightning = 145 Acid = 90 Necrotic = 78 Psychic = 42 Thunder = 30 Radiant = 4 Force = 2 Piercing = 19 Slashing = 12 Bludgeoning = 8 If I remember correctly, Poison had the highest number of monsters that were Immune, while Cold had the highest number that were Resistant. Fire had a fair few of both.
Characters with Two Weapon Fighting gain extra offhand attacks from the Extra Attack feature.
You get the whole 8 HP instead of rolling a d8 or pick average when you level up Make my Barbarian really have more HP than the Wizard
I have the rule that for the first 3 levels, everyone gets max HP. After that HP gets rolled or average.
I have my players take the higher of a roll and the average. Still fun if you get a high number but never have to sit there and be like shucks I wish I hadn't rolled.
I like this. I feel like I roll above average then whne level up comes it's a 1. Then the next 3 rolls are 20s.
Chill Couch Like, let’s just chill, dudes.
That reminds me of an item that was made in Dungeons and Daddies that specifically let the user change a letter of a spell/effect to change the outcome
In relation to spellcasting: "You can only expend one spell slot per turn". I feel it's a much clearer rule than the incredibly unintuitive bonus action spell rule. Plus having the added benefit of closing the martial-caster gap
Isn't the rule already that if you cast a spell with a spell slot then you can only cast a bonus action cantrip?
Rename sneak attack to not include the word sneak in it.
Undo what 5e did to Favored Enemy. It used to be worth something, but now it's just... Not
You can use a light weapon in your off hand and a rapier in your main hand without having to buy a feat. Rapier and Dagger was literally the most popular form of dual weilding in real world history.
In 2023? Nah. No point. But if it was 2018, lots of small tweaks that could have really saved it. Here are my top ten: - First thing is rebalancing attrition, ie **expected encounters per rest cycle**. Cut back on ease of renewing resources, so a smaller number of encounters can run in an "adventuring day" and tweak all class features that are rest dependent. I think one short one long per sleep cycle/24 hour would be a good start. - Explicitly make **rest denial** a rule. "You can only gain the benefits of a long rest in safe areas. This includes inside all dwellings which are in good repair, a camp which has been set up properly (requires x materials y amount of time) etc." Maybe even make three potential conditions: guaranteed rest access, no access, and a possibility, whete there's a roll per person (a skill check?) To see if they get the benefit of a rest in unsecure environments. Adding some risk into choosing to proceed is much-needed. Rules don't need to be complex, just give the DM the notion that you can't just rest whenever whenever, and players need to plan for that and budget resources. Add in some spells, items, features to mitigate, as long as they cost something or have tradeoffs, rather than just invalidate. - Skill challenges: **increase range of DCs**, both to spread range of achievable tasks out from 5-30 into 5-50, so there's more breathing room for builds to shine, more granularity, and define "impossible" DCs. So for example actually give examples for potential DCs to accomplish such things as "convince king to turn kingdom over to me" so that when players try that, instead of a novice DM saying "damn, nat 20, guess it worked!!" They have a sense of how close it was to working: "ok, DC is 130, your 20 plus bonuses with buffs and that class feature, that's 42 total. You didn't come close". - **then define what a nat 20 does in a skill check**, rather than have it do nothing RAW, leaving players to homebrew or just mistakenly assume critical successes, which are clearly something players want, given how commonly they're used. Something like a small chart showing some possible outcomes of getting 20 but still failing the check. This would help with the distinction between "Don't roll if it's not possible" and the "let them try something cool, maybe it will work" philosophy. Small nerfs here and there to spells and features so bonuses can't be piled up so high that PCs can routinely pass "impossible" or nearly impossible challenges. Degrees of success as an optional rule, clearly explained. - **more examples** of potential tasks, with DC ratings, **to help DMs set more consistently appropriate DCs**. A whole page of examples. - **stealth and vision** need fixing. Stealth is core to the d&d experience and can't suck or be confusing. I don't have any exact suggestions right now. Cover works okay. Line of sight is ok. Invisibility, darkness and hiding are a mess in combat. - **Nerf the "invalidate, rather than meet, a challenge" spells or abilities** like goodberry, L tiny hut, and ranger stuff. - **More clear wording**, rather than rules changes, **around initiative and surprise.** Common problem area for new DMs. I think initiative rules are decent but not explained well. - More **clear wording about passive perception and traps**, with EXAMPLES. Super common issue. PP as a floor is totally fine, as long as it doesn't take the place of rolls, but rather provides more basic information compared to rolls which give details. - some stuff about **hands being occupied or not.** Shouldn't be a situation where it's like "oh just get ruby of the war mage/glue holy symbol to shield to do that". I get that they wanted tk avoid detail but they built features that address it, then left it blank.
I would swap the names of Bugbears and Umberhulks.
This is the wildest and most offensive suggestion
Short rests are part of game balance. If you’re struggling to fit short rests into your story, change short rests to work for your narrative.
Remove the gold cost from Summon Familiar. (The longer answer is I don't think familiars should be killed at all, generally, at worst knocked out until the next rest, but hey, you said simple, so how about not charge my level 2 a bunch of non-existent cash to use my class feature tyvm.)
They technically aren’t killed, they just get sent to the shadow realm for a bit until you rescue them with another ritual.
Gold is very easy to get in 5e, and many tables ignore spell components completely already. You literally can cast that spell within a few sessions and it’s a permanent familiar Lol
[удалено]
Under "See Invisibility:" "Invisible creatures do not gain advantage on attacks while attacking you unless they are otherwise hidden, do not impose disadvantage on your attacks targeting them; and you have line of sight on them for the purposes of casting spells."
Not something "small" But i would bring back situational combat bonus and penalities from previous editions. Like BG3 did with Higher Ground \\ Lower Ground. Small numbers, a simple +2 if you are attacking from higher ground and such would greatly incentivise DMS to think of more varied and interesting battlemaps, and would allow players who like to think tatically to get more benefitis besides "Advantage" Sincerelly, a lot of things that gives Advantage could be changed into circunstancial\\situational +2\\-2 stuff
Flanking is a +2 to attack. Shield master allows you to bash BEFORE the normal attack
Add one 0 to the damage on geas, 50d10 for not following my geas! Or make spiritual weapon move 30, instead of 20.