Custom Exhaustion

  • Whenever you would normally gain or lose 1 point of exhaustion, you instead gain or lose 2.
  • Drinking a Potion of Greater Healing removes 1 exhaustion.
  • Drinking a Potion of Superior Healing removes 2 exhaustion.
  • Sleeping/Resting for 6 hours removes 2 exhaustion
  • Exhaustion Effects:
    • Each point of exhaustion imposes a -1 penalty to
      • Attack Rolls
      • Saving Throws
      • Ability Checks
      • -0.5 Armor Class (AC)
  • At 10 points of exhaustion, you die.

    All rules and features that reference exhaustion automatically use this adjusted scale. Do not double it again.

Getting Downed

  • Each time you regain unconscious by dropping to 0 HP, you gain 2 points of exhaustion. The only exception is if you rolled a natural 20 on a death saving throw to regain 1 HP.

Flanking

  • Flanking only applies when you and an ally are on opposite sides of a creature.
  • Flanking grants a +2 bonus to melee attack rolls.
  • Flanking provides no other benefits.

Spell Componnets

Material Components

  • If the spell consumes the material component with a specified cost, you can use your stored gold, instead of the specific item.
  • If the spell requires but does not consume a material component with a specified cost, you must have that specific item.

Semantic Component

  • You need a free hand except if a feature specifies otherwise (e.g. War Caster feat).
  • Restrained condition does not prevent you from providing the somatic component. (I'm thinking of changing that)

Vocal Component

  • You need to be able to speak. Casting a spell is always audible unless a class feature or ability states otherwise (e.g. the Subtle Spell metamagic).
  • As a guideline:
    • The act of casting can be heard from up to 120 feet away.
    • The words of the spell can be understood from up to 60 feet away, provided the spell is on the listener’s spell list.

Wielding Items

  • Dropping an item on the ground/throwing it away requires no action.
  • Drawing or stowing an item requires an action.
  • You can draw a weapon as part of the attack action.

    Which means if you have a bow in your hands, and you decide that now it’s time to use your sword, to attack with a sword in this turn, you will need to drop the bow (no action) and attack with your sword, which also will allow you to draw it as part of the attack action.

Custom Long Rests (“Safe Rests”)

Short Rests

  • Function as normal:
    • Take 1 hour.
    • Can be done anywhere, anytime, and can be interrupted.

Long Rests (renamed to Safe Rests)

  • Take a minimum of 8 hours.
  • Can only be taken in a Safe Place.
  • Do not remove exhaustion points

Safe Place Requirements:

  • An effectively unlimited supply of food.
  • An effectively unlimited supply of healing (e.g., medical facility, magical aid such as stationed druids or clerics).
  • Protection from immediate danger, such as:
    • Guarded walls
    • A well-barricaded structure
    • A remote and secure location (e.g., mountaintop rarely attacked)
  • Safe Places may become unusable due to:
    • Depletion of supplies
    • Increased monster activity from player presence

Example: If the party fortifies an abandoned house with food and water, it might provide only two Safe Rests before supplies run out or monsters breach the defenses.

Custom Encumbrance

  • Your maximum carry weight is 10 × Strength score in pounds.
  • There are no penalties for being over this limit, you simply cannot carry more.
  • Pushing, dragging, and lifting follow the standard (vanilla) rules.

Lingering Injuries

In case you would drop to 0 hit points and fall unconscious, you can expend any number of your unused Hit Dice to regain hit points, but in doing so, you suffer a Lingering Injury.

Roll d20 and consult the table below to determine the injury.

Lingering Injury Table

d20 Injury
1 Lose an Eye. Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight and on ranged attack rolls. If all eyes are lost, the creature is blinded.
2 Lose an Arm or Hand. Can’t hold anything with two hands and can only hold a single object at a time.
3 Lose a Foot or Leg. Speed is halved. Requires a cane, crutch, or prosthesis. Falls prone after using Dash. Disadvantage on Dexterity checks made to balance.
4 Limp. Speed reduced by 5 ft. Must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw after using Dash or fall prone.
5-7 Internal Injury. When attempting an action in combat, must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the action is lost and reactions can’t be used until the start of the next turn.
8-10 Broken Ribs. Same as Internal Injury, but the save DC is 10.
11-13 Horrible Scar. Disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks; advantage on Charisma (Intimidation) checks.
14-16 Festering Wound. Hit point maximum is reduced by 1 every 24 hours. If it reaches 0, the creature dies.
17-20 Minor Scar. No mechanical effect.

DM Inspiration

  • You may only store one inspiration at a time.
  • You earn inspiration by doing cool or creative stuff, for example:
    • Commiting to strong roleplay
    • Something reflects your backstory, traits, bonds, flaws, or ideals
    • Solving problems in unconventional ways
  • You can use inspiration to reroll any roll (not just d20s) (with few exceptions):
    • Your own roll
    • Another player’s roll
    • A DM’s roll
    • Including damage, saving throws, attack rolls, ability checks, etc.
    • You can choose to use it after seeing the result.
    • You CANNOT reroll saving throws of enemies.
    • You CANNOT reroll percentile rolls (d100) like wish, divine intervention, teleport spell etc.
  • The DM may add inspiration silently to your character sheet when deserved.

Custom Scroll Casting

  • If the spell is either:
    • Not on your class’s spell list, or
    • On your class’s spell list but 3 or more levels higher than the highest-level spell you can currently cast,

    → you must succeed on an Arcana check to cast it. The DC is based on the spell’s level, ranging from DC 10 to DC 19.

  • Otherwise, you can cast the spell from the scroll freely, without needing components or a check.

Attunement Requirements

  • If the attunement requirement for an item prevents you from attuning to it, ask the DM if they can waive it. Maybe the item will not work fully, or require you to perform some task to attune to it.

    Why cannot a bard attune to the Staff of Frost? Why cannot a fighter attune to a Sun Blade?

Surprise

Trap

  • Occurs when you prepare an ambush or a similar situation.
  • The leader of the ambush rolls a Stealth check, while all ambushed creatures roll Perception checks.
  • Any creature that rolls lower than the ambusher is surprised.
  • Surprised creatures cannot move or take an action on their first turn of combat, and they cannot take a reaction until that turn ends.

Surprise Attack

  • Occurs when you attack a creature that is unaware of your presence.
  • The attackers roll a Stealth check contested by the target’s Passive Perception.
  • If even one attacker fails the contest, the surprise does not occur.

Variant Actions

From Dungeon Master’s Guide:

Variant Rules Used

Other House Rule Sets