#variant rule

Nothing special today, just a quick post. Friend of mine posted in our discord a super incomplete beginnings of a system for special effects on crits based on the damage so I went and ran with it.

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Whenever a creature suffers a critical hit or rolls a natural 1 on a saving throw against an effect, the creature suffers an additional effect based on the damage dealt. If the creature is immune to the damage type, the effect does not occur. If there is more than one damage type present, use the one that dealt the most damage. If the damage rolled for each is a tie, the DM chooses the effect.

Acid. Any nonmagical or natural armor the creature has is removed. Their AC becomes 10+ their Dexterity modifier+ any other bonuses to AC the creature has. If the creature has magical armor, this reduction lasts for 3 rounds. If the creature has natural armor, their full AC is restored once they complete a long rest.

Bludgeoning. The creature is knocked prone.

Cold. The creature's movement speed is reduced by 10 feet for 3 rounds.

Fire. The creature is set on fire for 3 rounds, suffering 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of their turns. A creature can spend an action to douse the flames, ending the effect.

Force. The creature is pushed backwards 5 feet in the opposite direction of the attack. This movement stacks with other effects that would cause forced movement.

Lightning. The creature is stunned for 1 round.

Necrotic. The creature becomes frightened of the creature who caused the effect for 3 rounds. If the creature has any food such as rations, they begin to spoil and are reduced by 1 day.

Piercing. The effect leaves a gaping wound in the creature, making further attacks easier. Attacks against the creature now crit on a roll of 19-20. If a creature already has an increased crit range, it is increased further by 1 against that creature. This effect ends when the creature regains any number of hit points.

Poison. The creature becomes poisoned for 3 rounds. 

Psychic. The creature becomes confused for 1 round as if under the effect of the Confusion spell.

Radiant. The creature becomes blinded for 3 rounds. 

Slashing. The creature begins bleeding, suffering 2 damage at the start of each of its turns until it regains any number of hit points.

Thunder. The creature becomes deafened for 3 rounds.

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Do you find your players tiring too easily mid-dungeon but don’t want them to take a short rest? Perhaps it would be too dangerous to rest but the players are lacking in too many resources, or maybe a short rest would prove too forgiving in the circumstance.

Of course, you can always switch to one of the alternative rest systems with shorter rests (10 mins/1 hour) or longer rests (8 hours/1 wk), but this variant fits in somewhat neatly as a “partial” short rest in a pinch: the Quick Rest!

Variant: Taking a Quick Rest

Players can take a Quick Rest to catch their breath when there is no time for an hour-long short rest. A Quick Rest takes 5-10 minutes but is less useful than a short rest. A Quick Rest allows the following effects:

Players can regain hit points using hit dice, much like during a short rest, except that each player can only spend up to 1 Hit Die when taking a Quick Rest.

In addition, players with class features, racial traits, or other abilities that replenish expended uses after a short rest can replenish the use of one such ability of their choice. If the ability has multiple uses (such as Bardic Inspiration) or uses a pool of resources (such as Maneuver Dice or Ki Points), the player only regains 1/2 of the expended uses, rounded up.

Instead of regaining ability uses, a player can choose to replenish one expended spell slot of up to 5th level.

A Quick Rest, in most respects, counts as a short rest for certain effects. For instance, a bard's Song of Rest will grant its bonus hit points for players who spend HD during the Quick Rest.

Which is just silly.

Clerics shouldn't have to roll to recall information about religion in general, their own religion, or religions their deity is affiliated with. They should just know that shit, just like druids and rangers should just know about the flora and fauna in their favoured terrains. They shouldn't have to roll to know what monster they're facing or whether that flower is edible or not.

House Rule: Variant Carrying Capacity

Usually, your carrying capacity equals your strength score X 15 lbs.

With this rule, each extra +1 not from your strength score to your athletics skill grants an additional 30 lbs. since athletics is the only strength skill, and it makes sense since better athleticism would mean a better capability to carry.

This bonus is derived from a relative +2 to strength equaling a +1 bonus, and 2 x 15 equals 30.

Now what does this rule mean? It gives a better reward for strength based builds, which are vastly overshadowed by Dexterity builds, it grants more leniency to your less buff players.

Not every rule is completely sensical though. Does this mean a goliath bear totem barbarian with brawny and a winch could carry 17,280 pounds?

Yes.

Is that a bad thing?

It seems a common problem for DM’s in 5e is managing the short and long rests players are able to take, and the encounters that should be faced between them. This houserule is designed to solve that problem. It replaces the rules for short and long rests. Text copied from current 5e rules without modification is in italics.

There is only one kind of rest player characters can benefit from, and it’s simply called a rest. A rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, 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.

A character can’t benefit from more than one rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits. 

If an ability is listed in your race or class features as being regained after a short rest, it is instead regained after a rest.

If an ability is listed in your race or class features as being regained after a long rest, you instead regain 1/3 of its uses after a rest. Do not round. If the number of uses you regain would be a fraction less than 1, that fraction is the chance that you regain a use of the ability. For example, if you have 5 uses and regain them after a long rest, you instead regain 1 use and have a 2/3 chance to regain a second use each time you finish a rest, to a maximum of 5 uses total. 

At the end of each rest, you roll all of your hit dice, adding your Constitution modifier to each one, and you regain a number of hit points equal to half of the total. 

[Note that this may conflict with certain special features allowing characters to roll hit dice while not taking a short rest.]

Related rules and guidelines for DM’s:

Resting in comfortable or miserable conditions can affect hit point recovery. At your discretion, when they roll their hit dice to recover hit points at the end of the rest, players must add the following modifiers to their rolls of each hit die:

When trying to rest in harsh conditions without proper gear, subtract 2 from each hit die roll. 

When resting in unpleasant but not harmful conditions, subtract 1 from each hit die roll. 

When resting in a particularly safe and cozy place, add 1 to each hit die roll.

When resting in very luxurious accommodations, add 2 to each hit die roll.

If you spent the day beforehand performing leisurely activities OR if you are a ranger or outlander in your preferred environment, add 1 to each hit die roll.

If you are at or below half your maximum hit points and a creature expends a medicine kit to treat your wounds at the beginning of your rest, the creature can make a DC 13 Wisdom (Medicine) check. On a success, you add 1 to each hit die roll.

Usually, the players should face about 2 Medium encounters, 1 Hard encounter, or several Easy encounters between each rest. 

(All text from this point on is added by @dmwisdom)

This is an excellent example of how to submit playtest material! Check the rule out, play with it a bit, provide some feedback! If there is anything you’d like to contribute without playtesting, make sure to note that you have not playtested the material.

Make sure you either reply to this post or reblog the post and add your commentary! Please do not contact the poster directly so they can have any and all feedback in one place!

I’ve been trying for a while to come up with a rule that makes getting knocked out in 5e combat riskier without increasing the burden on healers (as instant death at -Con hp or injuries at 0 hp would). Here’s my idea:

Each time you recover from going to 0 hit points, mark off a death saving throw with a big X (a death mark). That saving throw is already marked as a failure the next time you drop to 0 hit points. Therefore, if you have three death marks, dropping to 0 hit points is automatic death. Remove one death mark each time you finish a long rest.

With this rule, you can go to 0 hp once every day with no consequences, but any more than that and your character is at increasing risk of death.

DMWisdom from this point on.

This is an awesome idea! I feel like this could also allow the games to involve more combat in one rest. The creators said you should be able to fit 6 encounters into a long rest, but that seems a bit much to me. (Yeah, I know it’s encounters, not necessarily fights.)

Questions for you:  - What happens upon “death”? Do you get xdy hit points back? Maybe one hit die, expending it?  - Can a healer get there and heal the felled character, thus allowing the player to not expend a death save? Perhaps if the healer gets there before the player’s next round?

I’d like to propose two alternative ways of keeping track of monster health! I’ve found that running large fights with lots of enemies can become very tedious and it’s easy to lose track of which monster is which (especially when trying to keep track of 10 different monsters with perfectly identical minis.)

The first method is for Very Large Scale fights. If you want to send 27 wolves to attack your party while they try to get to some BBEG, you might consider just making them one-shot-KO monsters. With a party of four, there is still a threat in numbers and they can work your PCs down a bit.

The second method is for slightly smaller scale fights, or if you’re just lazy. I’ve played where there is a certain number of hits a monster can physically stand before falling. So, each time the monster in successfully hit, subtract one from its total number of hits remaining; subtract two if the player rolled a crit. The easiest way I’ve found in keeping track of this is by just using dice and rolling them down.