D&D 5E: HOUSE RULES Rule Books : Players may use any official Dungeons & Dragons book uploaded into my Charactermancer. This includes the Player’s Handbook , Monster Manual , Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes , Descent into Avernus , Eberron: Rising from the Last War , Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide , Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything , Volo’s Guide to Monsters , Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica , and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything . Character Creation : Use the following rules with the Roll20 Charactermancer to create your player character. All characters begin at 1st Level with 0 XP. Abilities : You must select the Point-Buy Method to determine your ability scores. Alignment : You cannot play an Evil alignment. No PVP actions allowed without permission. Classes : You cannot play a Warlock that has made a pact with the Great Old One, the Fiend, or the Undying. Only evil or insane characters would do such a thing. The other options are fine, though. Deities : You cannot play a character that is devoted to any of the Evil Gods. Hit Points : You always take Average Hit Points whenever you gain a new experience level. Starting Gear : You always take your Class Equipment for starting gear. House Rules : We will use the following house rules in this campaign. Character Death : If your old hero dies, you must roll up a new character with the same amount of XP. However, your new character must be a different class and/or race than the dead hero, and he only starts with his basic Class Equipment. As a matter of honor, all of your dead hero’s treasure and gear must be delivered to his surviving family members or buried with him, except for any magic items or quest items that he carries, which the party may take for themselves. Finally, your new character may not be the recipient of the dead hero’s items. Gaining New Level : If you earn enough XP to reach a new experience level, you must complete a long rest first before you gain your new abilities. Healing Rules : The following house rules modify how healing works. First Aid : If you spend one exploration turn and a healing kit, you can make a DC 10 Wisdom ( Medicine ) check to treat an injured character with first aid. If your check succeeds, the patient spends one Hit Die to heal immediately, and for every 5 points that your check beats the minimum difficulty, your patient gets to spend one additional Hit Die, if he has any remaining. For example, if you are hurt and spend one turn giving yourself first aid, and your Medicine check equals 21 (10, 15, and 20), you spend 3 HD to heal instantly. Natural Healing : At the end of a long rest, you do not heal any lost hit points, you recover one level of exhaustion; but if you do not suffer from any levels of exhaustion, then you recover all of your spent Hit Dice instead, which you may then use to heal yourself after the long rest ends. Meatgrinder Mode : The following house rules make the game deadlier. Death Saving Throws : All death saving throws are now DC 15, instead of DC 10. Instant Death : When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is excess damage remaining, you die if the excess damage equals or exceeds your Constitution score. For example, you currently have 4 hit points and a 10 Constitution. If you take 14 damage from a single attack, you are reduced to 0 hit points; but since 10 points of excess damage remains, and because that excess damage equals your Constitution score, you die instantly. Zero Hit Points : If you are reduced to 0 hit points, you suffer one level of exhaustion. Movement Rules : The following house rules modify how movement works during combat. Dashing : Whenever you use the Dash action, you get to make a Dexterity check; for every 5 points that you roll, you may move an extra 5 feet. For example, if your combat speed is 30 feet, and you roll a 16 on your Dexterity check, you get to move an extra 15 feet for a total Dash of 45 feet. Object Interactions : Whenever you perform an object interaction (e.g., open a door, draw or sheathe a weapon, pull a lever, or retrieve an item from your pack), it costs 10 feet of movement. You no longer get a free object interaction on your turn anymore. Standing Up : Whenever you stand up, this costs 20 feet of movement, but if you have proficiency in the Acrobatics skill, you can "kip-up," which only costs 10 feet of movement. Tumbling : If you are only moving at half speed, as part of your movement, you can make a Dexterity ( Acrobatics ) check against a hostile creature’s passive Perception ; if you succeed, you do not trigger an opportunity attack from that enemy and you can move through its space during your movement; but if you fail, the enemy may choose to take an opportunity attack normally and any movement into the enemy’s space causes you to fall prone. Using Stealth : When you use stealth, you only make an opposed Stealth roll at the moment someone might discover you; your roll suffers disadvantage if the searching foe already knows you are there. Size Advantage : Larger creatures gain advantage on their attack rolls when attempting to disarm, grapple, overrun, or shove smaller creatures. Spells : The following spells have been modified. Detect Magic : When casting a detect magic spell on an illusion, the DM must first (secretly) make the appropriate saving throw to see if the caster successfully detects the spell, as if he were interacting with the illusion normally. The detect magic spell does not automatically detect illusions. Healing Spirit : This spell ends once the spirit has restored hit points a number of times equal to twice your spellcasting ability modifier (minimum of once). For example, if your spellcasting modifier is at +3, the healing spirit can heal up to 6 times before the spell ends. XP Progression : We will be using a slower XP progression track that is loosely based on the Fighter class from the AD&D 2nd Edition rules. Why? Because Rappan Athuk was written using “old-school” design principles with high amounts of treasure, as that’s what players needed to gain XP in the original rules, so an older XP progression makes the game run smoother. Level XP Needed Level XP Needed 1 0 11 500,000 2 1,000 12 750,000 3 2,000 13 1,000,000 4 4,000 14 1,250,000 5 8,000 15 1,500,000 6 16,000 16 1,750,000 7 32,000 17 2,000,000 8 64,000 18 2,250,000 9 125,000 19 2,500,000 10 250,000 20 2,750,000 XP Rewards : You gain XP for defeating monsters. This does not necessarily mean killing them. If you drive off a dangerous enemy, or capture a group of brigands alive, that counts as “defeating” them. For every 1 gold piece that you spend while training in downtime, you gain 1 XP. To do this, you must train with a higher-level member of your character class for 1 day per 100 XP gained; otherwise, your training time gets doubled. (Note that this is the fastest way to gain levels in my game.) For example, if you are a 4th level fighter and you want to spend 720 gp on class training, that will take 8 days with a trainer who is 5th level or higher, or 16 days without a trainer. Furthermore, each party member gains 50 XP per hour of actual gameplay. For example, if your group plays a 4-hour session, you each gain 200 XP. Finally, if you clear out a dungeon level or complete a story goal, each member of your party gains XP equal to 10% of the total XP needed to reach next level. For example, if your adventuring party is 4th level and needs 4,000 XP to reach 5th level, and you save a local villager from a band of orcs (e.g., a story goal), each hero gains 400 XP on top of their other XP rewards.
