5erules
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Table of Contents
5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
This page details how I use the 5th edition rules. Comments welcome.
Included Rules
In general, rules are only allowed from the following books:
- Player's Handbook
- Dungeon Master's Guide
- Monster Manual
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything
- Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
Character creation can be done using any method outlined in the PHB. However, if you choose to roll dice for your characteristics, I expect it to be done in person – primarily so we can laugh when you roll low. (The same rule exists for hit points at levels 2 and above)
Deviations
- Races: Only races from the Player's Handbook are allowed with the following exceptions and notes:
- Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Drow (Dark Elves) are very unusual and will be met with stares and/or discrimination everywhere they go.
- Orcs are allowed as a player race – though they will be met with some suspicion in certain “civilized” towns.
- Goblins are allowed as a player race – however they are highly unusual and generally hated by everyone.
- Variant Rules: All variant rules in the Player's Handbook are allowed – with the following comments:
- Equipment Sizes (PHB, p.144): Using armor of a different size is allowed without modification. However, a day of this will incur one level of Exhaustion (PHB, p.291).
- Some variant rules from the DMG are also used. (Need a list)
- Significant Injury Houserule: When a character wakes up after being unconscious, they acquire one level of Exhaustion (PHB, p.291) if they failed at least one death saving throw while unconscious.
- Unconscious condition: Ignore the last bullet point: “Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.” Such an attack may or may not be a critical hit based on the normal rules for critical hits.
- Grid-based combat: Combat is almost always done on a square-grid battlemat with miniatures or other tokens.
- Persistent Damage: (see below)
- Wizard enhancements:
- Wizards can put spells in their spellbook even if they are of a level higher than they can prepare.
- Wizards can use Ritual Casting to attempt casting spells of a level higher than they can prepare. To do so, they must spend an additional 10 minutes and make a spellcasting ability check (just like for a spell scroll) for each level above their maximum. Any failure results in something bad (TBD).
- Deities: The preferred deities are from the “Fantasy-Historical Pantheons” (PHB, p.297-299) or the Non-Human Deities (PHB, p.296)
Persistent Damage
- Any time a character takes damage, they incur one point of “Persistent Damage” for each die rolled against them.
- This damage is part of (not in addition to) the normal hit point damage they take and needs to be kept track of separately.
- Each point of Persistent Damage reduces the character's maximum hit point total by one.
If the total of Persistent Damage equals the character's total hit points, they die.- Magical healing (except for Healing Word) restores one point of Persistent Damage for each die rolled.
- Hit dice rolled after a Short Rest has no effect on Persistent Damage.
- A Long Rest restores ONE point of Persistent Damage.
5erules.1643392128.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/01/28 11:48 by jims