5e haus rules

What's a blog without some house rules to tweak the game? Here ya go.

Character creation

(Using Dnd 5E and the Eberron setting, for now.)

Name: Think up a background or just decide on the basics and write up your history during play.

Starting level: 1 (replacement characters can come in at higher level - see house rules)

Races: Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc. No sub-races.

Eberron specific: Mostly here - Changelings, Warforged, Shifters (the only one race with sub-races that we'll use), and Dragonmarks. We're not using the artificer. Kalashtar here; their extra psi points also count for sorcery points (reskinning the sorceror to make a psion).

Abilities: choose how to stat out your character. Lower lines = more bragging rights.
Stolen from Zak S, but relabeled a bit because I don't actually game with pornstars.

    Cuddle blanket - arrange to taste: 16, 14, 12, 10, 10, 8
    Kid's gloves - roll 4d6 (drop lowest) six times, arrange to taste
    Hardass - roll 3d6 six times, arrange to taste
    Old school - roll 3d6 in order for each ability
    Or use this 3d6-per-ability method that also writes your background for you from Goblin Punch.

HOLD ON ACTUAL CHANCE TO OPTIMIZE YOUR DUDE AND MAKE FRIENDS 
Need more dough? Stats underwhelming? You can take out a loan with an NPC. Could be gold you're owing, could be something more intangible. Work something out with the DM. Rerolling your ability line (even switching to a different method) is free. Totally. Like, just ignore the DM writing down how many times you reroll.

Backgrounds: read the book or clicky here (Acolyte to Urchin only). Gives skill/tool proficiency, languages, starting gear, and a special feature. Pick this first, then choose a class so that you avoid doubling up on skills.

Classes: any class in the player's guide. No archetypes except cleric domains (discuss with DM). If you want to play a psion, discuss with the DM how to adapt the Sorceror.

Starting gear: from your background and your class, OR use alternative starting gear (below)

Alternative starting gear:
Happy shopping.
Monk 5d4 gp
Barbarian, druid: 2d4 x 10 gp
Sorcerer 3d4 x 10 gp
Rogue, warlock, wizard: 4d4 x 10 gp
Bard, cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger: 5d4 x 10 gp

Silver is the new gold

Musa I of Mali - richest fucker ever or just
a regular level 5 pc? - wikimedia commons

Because of arbitrary reasons of realism (I don't want my schmuck murderhobos to cart around enough gold to tank the economy), the currency standard is the silver piece (worth a standard D&D gold piece). 100 brass pennies = 10 copper pieces = 1 silver piece. Gold is stupidly more valuable: 100 sp = 1 gp. Platinum pieces are minted at 10 gp = 1 pp, but good luck finding them.


On second thought, constantly replacing gp-->sp sounds awfully much like actual thinking and I'll have to do enough of that when the players start wreaking havoc.
Scratch this one.

CAROUSING AND OTHER DOWNTIME

Lookie here, it's the carousing rules!

New meat for the grinder

Inspired by / stolen from: Jeff Rients. Of course.

So your guy is now Wyvern dung, polymorphed into a frog, smeared all over the landscape by a landing dragon, or just dies of infection from a Kobold trap. (lol) If raising the dead is not in the cards, you'll need a new character to keep playing.

Bards can help you find the next adventure

Who knew the whiny bastards were useful for something after all.

Back in business

Is there a name for people who read about roleplaying games but don't actually sit at the table? Spectators or lurkers or something. Anyway, until a week ago I was one of those.

Adult life happened and one day I wake up and it's been YEARS since I rolled a die in anger. Happily reading OSR blogs and even played in a gaming store a few times, but it's not the same as having an actual group of friends to bullshit with. C'est la vie.

Then one of the old gang (who had just loaned me some fantasy novels) innocently asked: "don't these books just make you want to play d&d?"*

And they DID and in a couple of days we had the band back together and my brain slipped into heartless DM mode like it was only YESTERDAY. Now I have stuff for FIVE adventures at least in a little black book and it's scary that just driving past a fairground makes me remember all the horrible stuff that I contributed to (handle: Oorlof).

So like the cool kids do, I started this very blog to collect house rules, story ideas, and stuff that makes the rpg parts of my head blow happy bubbles.

Happy reading.