All The 5e House Rules You’re Already Using (And Some You Should Be)

ismail inceoglu

I wrote this post so I could beat my playgroup over the head with it.

Most of these houserules are pretty standard. You may already be using them.
Underlined rules are the wild ones. They aren’t for everyone.

STARTING THE GAME

At the beginning of the game, decide as a table whether to play with or without an inventory limit.

• Option 1 (default): You have no inventory limit, and can carry anything you could feasibly hoist on your back. The only downside is, if everyone else at the table agrees you’re carrying "a lot of stuff," you sink like a rock and can't move quietly to save your life.
• Option 2: You have a number of slots equal to your Strength score. You simply cannot carry more items than you have slots, end of story.
  

Regardless of which option you pick, NEVER add mundane ammunition, food, water, light sources, etc to your inventory. (If you want to run a campaign where scarcity of these resources is important, feel free to reintroduce them. By default, however, these are assumed to be on your person in quantities sufficient for expected use.)

During character creation and when leveling up, you can defer decisions about your character until later in the game. Here’s an incomplete list of deferrable character features:

• age/weight/height/other cosmetic factors
• subrace/draconic ancestry
• sex & gender
• alignment (alternatively, ignore alignment completely)
• background
• extra languages
• skill proficiencies
• ability score improvements
• feats
• spells/cantrips
• druid circle/wizard school/fighter archetype/etc.
• if you're really crazy: race/class/name
  
• pretty much anything in the PHB that says “of your choice” or “you choose”

Mark these on your character sheet with question marks. At any point in the game, you may make one of these decisions. For example, if you defer an extra language and stumble upon some ancient runes: “Truth be told, Abyssal was my elective back in knight school.”
You don’t gain the benefits of a given feature until the next rest if it takes you more than 10 seconds to consult the PHB and write it down. Keep the game moving.

Armor proficiencies are stupid. Ignore them.
Multiclassing prerequisites are stupid. Ignore them.
Ability score prerequisites for feats are stupid. Ignore them.

ALL players ALWAYS roll for a trinket at character creation. (it's the best piece of content in all the published 5e sourcebooks)

bani-chan

BASIC PLAY RULES

DICELESS ADVANTAGE:
If you have advantage from 2+ different sources, you automatically succeed.
If you have disadvantage from 2+ different sources, you automatically fail.
If you have advantage/disadvantage from 3+ different sources, you automatically crit.
Yes, this means you can guarantee a crit an AC30 demon with some grease and a lesser invisibility spell. Smart planning will always be rewarded appropriately.

There are 3 DCs: Easy (10), Hard (20), and Nearly Impossible (30). The DM should use these exact words when describing a task’s difficulty.
(For conversion’s sake, always round up: 5 -> 10, 15 -> 20, 25 -> 30)
The DM should reveal a task’s DC or a monster’s AC when asked explicitly by the players. None of this is secret information; PCs just have a better sense of how difficult something is in-universe than anyone at the table.

FOR GROUP CHECKS, ALWAYS USE A SINGLE ROLL
One person elected by the group rolls. No other PC can attempt the check afterwards.
If everyone needs to succeed, only the character with the lowest modifier rolls.
- Example: sneaking around undetected
If only one person needs to succeed, only the character with the highest modifier rolls.
- Example: perception, remembering historical trivia
If it makes no difference how many PCs attempt the roll and for how long, don’t call for a check in the first place.

Here’s are the rules for using ability checks in social interactions:

1. Don’t. Rolling the dice to determine success means the players have fucked up somehow and are leaving things up to fate. Neither the player nor the DM should WANT a social interaction to come to this, but sometimes all the good ideas in the world can’t help the bumbling adventurers.
2. Call for an ability check only if failure is meaningful; if the roll comes up short, the conversation is going to come to a screeching, unfavorable halt.
   (alternatively, there is something at risk; the vizier learns whatever secret the players are trying to keep from him, or decides to execute his captives effective immediately.)
   
3. Before rolling, players are told what the DC is and what the stakes are, as well as given a chance to walk whatever they said back. (You should do this for all ability checks, but especially for social encounters.)
4. If they succeed, they get what they want. If they fail, they lose what they risked. There is no opportunity to interject; the die is cast, and the conversational thread has been snipped with great prejudice.

THE GAME OCCURS IN TURNS
In combat, these are 6 second rounds.
In the dungeon, these are 10 minute crawls.
In settlement visits, these are 1 hour jaunts.
In overland exploration, these are 8 hour treks.
Each turn, each PC gets 1 action and some movement. The scale of action and movement changes depending on the turn’s scope.
For more information, read this post on turn structures.

UNLESS YOURE PLAYING ON A GRID, IGNORE ALL PRECISE MEASUREMENTS
5’ = “within reach”
10’-30’ = “in the same room”
30’-100’ = “within shouting distance”
100’+ = “visible from a distance”
If you’re 5’ short of reaching the lever on the other side of the room, you reach it anyway, because counting feet is for caterpillars.

The DM writes down your marching order. Unless you explicitly decide to change your marching order, this is it for the rest of the campaign.

artem demura

OH NO VIOLENCE

NPCs/monsters don’t roll initiative. Treat all NPCs as if they rolled a 10 on their initiative. Everyone can see the initiative order; again, this isn’t hidden information.
(Alternatively, fuck turn-based initiative, do it my way instead.)

A target with half cover has advantage on Dex saves, and attacks against it have disadvantage.
A target with 3/4 cover has half cover. 3/4 cover is a myth, a kid’s tale.

Moving through another creature’s space is NOT DIFFICULT TERRAIN (seriously, who wrote this?????)

Critical failures in combat are not opportunities for PCs to fuck up; they’re opportunities for monsters to be absolutely terrifying.
When you roll a 1 in combat, the nearest/scariest enemy takes advantage of it. The dragon frightens the player, no save. The orc gets a free attack. The goblin farts in your face, poisoning you.
This is upsetting, but infinitely less frustrating than dropping your axe for the 3rd time this session. Seriously, you should get a wrist strap for that thing.

When you drop to 0 HP, you aren’t unconscious, just unhelpful. You fall on the ground, unable to do anything but clutch your wounds and maybe scream.
If you attempt to do anything helpful while at 0 HP, including shouting advice or crawling to safety, you automatically fail one of your death saves. If you’re stable, you destabilize.

You don’t kill NPCs/monsters, you defeat them.
When you defeat an enemy, they are completely at your mercy; you can send them running witless into the hills, knock them off a cliff (no save), or slay them where they stand. By default, you knock them unconscious unless you describe otherwise.
You can immediately extend a helping hand to a defeated foe, restoring them to 1 HP. Maybe this brings combat to an end, or maybe you’ve doomed yourself by putting your faith in another. That’s up to you and your DM.

Hit Dice are stupid. Don’t use them.
There are two types of rest: short and long.
Short rest: Take an hour, have a snack, catch your breath. Regain up to half your max HP.
Long rest: Rest for a solid eight hours without interruption. Regain full HP.
Recuperating in downtime takes a week of rest. Remove all non-permanent, non-magical injuries, poisons, and diseases affecting you.

Optional: Feasting! You can spend a slot of high quality food per PC (if playing with inventory limits) to turn a short rest into a long rest. It's a feast, and everyone's invited! If a monster/NPC shows up (very likely, given the smell), you must invite them to join in peacefully or forfeit the benefits of the long rest.

EXTRAS

Any purchase that costs less than 1% of your total wealth is a trifling sum, and costs effectively nothing. This includes daily expenses, such as lifestyle and hireling costs.
Players who attempt to abuse this mechanic (for example, by buying 100 swords at 100 different shops) pay in full.

If this information ever becomes relevant in your campaign, just nuke it from fucking orbit.

Ignore all the rules for long jumps and high jumps. Ignore movement rules in general.
You can move around as much as you need to, unless:

• Your DM tells you its risky. They tell you the DC. You choose to take the risk (make a check, suffering consequences on a failure) or do something else.
• Your DM tells you it’s impossible. Not “near impossible”, impossible. You can’t do it, so you don’t try.

You can hold your breath for five minutes or until you get the wind knocked out of you. Make a death saving throw (+CON mod if your DM is nice) each round spent without air. You don’t drop to 0 HP and can still act while suffocating.

IF YOU CANT SEE, YOU CANT SEE
WHY DOES THIS TAKE SO MANY WORDS TO EXPRESS

THE ONE HOUSE RULE TO RULE THEM ALL

If you ever invoke the 5e Exhaustion rules, you lose the game of D&D. Everyone packs up and goes home.
If you absolutely must use exhaustion in your game, you’re exhausted instead. (disadvantage on everything, speed = 0) You don't die from exhaustion; something else comes along and kills you instead.