Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
This time around we talk a bit about House Rules and how these may or may not be applied to your game.
Rules as Written (RAW)
Whenever a roleplaying game is created and released, it is done so with a particular gameplay in mind. Often, this also includes the theme, and the way the rules are presented often skews the game in a particular direction. As an example, Dungeons & Dragons, in all its many incarnations, has always had a considerable amount of space and words dedicated to combat and spells. This means that these are likely to feature prominently in any game that takes place within that system, and especially if a group plays the rules exactly as written.
But, rules are not always applied evenly (especially if you look at the many ways that D&D 5th Edition is being bent) and you’ll eventually find that you fall into a hole where the rules generally do not apply. This is where house rules and GM’s Call come in.
First, GM’s Call
GM’s are called on to make spur-of-the-moment judgment calls every time that a group sits down around a gaming table. Whether that is how the NPCs react to the actions of the PCs, or how a particular spell works (“Can I talk to fish with speak with animals if I can’t breathe water?”) or how any given (usually obscure) rule is applied, and when one isn’t. This is part and parcel of the role of the GM. There are times, though, where you find some rules you keep applying and so, you’ll have to establish them as house rules because you find that they make your game flow more easily.
House Rules
House rules then are those times where you’ve found yourself making judgment calls on a particular rule or application multiple times, and to ensure that you’re fair and even with it, you establish it as a house rule. It could be anything really, but they tend to fall into two categories: utility and combat. Those with utility tend to have less impact, while those for combat tend to have greater consequences because they directly affect the mortality of characters and NPCs.
So to show you, here are a few examples from my own D&D 5e campaign and my reasoning behind them:
Healing Potions: (Combat and Utility)
- You can drink a healing potion as a bonus action.
- You can give another person a healing potion as a normal action.
- You can drink a healing potion as a normal action for FULL healing from it.
This change was put in to, at first, simulate an item that existed in Pathfinder 1, a bandolier that allowed you to grab potions faster, without spending your action on it. However, for 5e I limited it to healing potions only. This is because being forced to scramble for healing tends to take away from all the INTERESTING things that your character can do. And unless you’re the healer in the group, chances are good that your healing potion (especially in the later levels) will have little effect on your survivability. Here though, with this change, you keep your normal actions, gain a little security (and allow the healer to perform some triage) by drinking it as a bonus action. And if you’re really in trouble, you can spend more time making sure you get as much out of it as you can (in essence ensuring that you drink all of it) to relieve the healer and gain maximum healing. And you can still give it normally to someone else.
Encumbrance: (Utility)
There’s no need to keep track of encumbrance, especially in 5e. Quite simply, the bookkeeping is boring and most groups ignore it anyways, as long as you’re not carrying around anything REALLY daft, like a donkey or elephant. (This is why newer systems have done away with Encumbrance as counting pounds, in order to take into account things like Bulk and Item Size – it’s much faster IF you want to keep track of it).
Small Characters and Big Weapons: (Combat)
In 5th Edition, if you’re a small character wielding a heavy weapon, you have disadvantage on your attacks. This I have done away with. Simply put, I do not want to punish you for your character’s MECHANICAL choices (your story ones are a different story 😉 ), but in a system where you can move your stats around during creation so that the traditionally Dexterous (+2 Dexterity) halfling can now be Strong (+2 Strength), why shouldn’t they be able to wield a larger weapon (also, HELLO ANIME)? Finally, there is a mechanical consideration here. There’s no real advantage to playing a small character – you still take up the same amount of space during combat, and don’t get any Armor Class bonuses from it — so I don’t think you should necessarily have a penalty as well. Also, it discourages players from making these character choices.
Natural 1s and Natural 20s: (Utility)
This isn’t so much a house rule, as a reminder: A lot of groups play with Natural 1s being failures (or even fumbles) and Natural 20s being automatic hits and crits. THIS ONLY APPLIES IN COMBAT. Natural 1s fail (but do not normally fumble) and Natural 20s hit, but when using skills and the like, they’re not really affected. It’s still likely to be a failure/success depending on the roll, but it is not automatic. What I do instead, is that I apply a consequence to the roll. Fail on a natural 1 on that Persuasion check, and now the NPC REALLY doesn’t like you. Succeed on that natural 20 Stealth check, well HELLO BATMAN.
And that concludes my blog for the week. Give us your favorite house rules in the comments or on Facebook. We’d love to hear them. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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