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House Rules for my games –

Observing Natural 20’s and Critical Fails – everywhere.

• A Natural 20 is always a success – whether it’s to hit something or a Savings Throw. For example, if the DC of a Save is DC 28. And the player – with the roll of a 20, can only get a max of 23 (which would fail) – but manages to roll a Natural 20, they automatically succeed that savings throw. Similar to hitting something. If something had an AC of 25, and even with the bonus with a weapon the player could only hot to roll a 23 – but rolls the dice and rolls a Natural 20, that is a hit. On the flip side, a Natural 1 is always a Critical Fail and will miss / fail, no matter how great their skill is.
• If you get a Natural 20 during Initiative – this gives you two actions, explained as being hyped up on adrenaline; you’re ready for battle! The two actions are only on the first round. Every round after, is normal.
  • If you opt to hold your action when you get a Natural 20 on Initiative, you also opt to lose the extra action you get; because you’re allowing your adrenaline to even out
• If you get a Natural 1 during Initiative – you’re caught flat footed and surprised and unable to take any action for that first round
• If you get a Natural 20 during combat (to hit) with Melee, Ranged, or Spell attacks, you get to do an extra roll of damage (this is pretty standard; used to double the damage, but with the use of Beyond20 – it automatically rolls additional damage)
• If you get a Natural 1 during combat (to hit) with Melee, Ranged, or Spell attacks; you automatically hit one of your comrades or drop your weapon. Depending on the situation (for example, someone standing next to the Fighter might get hit by their sword; or someone in front of an archer or spell caster might get hit by their arrow or spell). All damage taken is half the damage rolled (for example, if the Fighter Critical Fails and rolls a 1 and roll 10 damage – and the Cleric is next to them – the Cleric is hit for 5 damage). In the instance that no one is around the Fighter, they might throw their sword 1d10 feet in any given direction and require movement to get it.
• Savings Throws – When a Natural 20 is rolled, the person avoids even half damage. For example if lightning is cast – and the player (or monster!) rolls a Natural 20 – not only do they avoid the half damage – but they manage to avoid all of the damage.
  • However, Critical Fail on a save results in double the damage taken!

Pets, Mounts and Familiars

• Pets and familiars (and mounts, if they have an attack) go on the same initiative as the person controlling them – but always after the person controlling them and not before. This makes it easier and makes keeping track of the initiative order much smoother.
• Because pets/familiars/mounts go on the same turn, I allow the players to use their Bonus Action to give commands. This is the only time a pet/mount/familiar will go before the actual player; in the event the player uses their bonus action first, to issue a Help command, for example.

Quaffing Potions / Swapping Weapons

• Quaffing potions is a bonus action. I realize it makes it much easier for a player to maintain health – but at the same time, I don’t want players to wait the entire round just to say, “I quaff a potion to heal” – and that’s all they get to do. I like to keep players in the action of things.
  • However, if another player is giving another player their potion during combat, this is considered an action (due to taking all the concentration in the world not to drop their own potion in the middle of a fight, and handing it off to someone else to quaff, who is also in the middle of combat). So for example, if during combat – the Warlock wants to give the Ranger their potion – that will be the Warlock’s action (assuming he’s able to reach the Ranger) rather than a bonus action.
    • Giving potions to another (active, as in not unconscious) person during the heat of battle requires a Dexterity DC of 10 (the person receiving the potion bottle) in order to not drop it since it’s the heat of battle and things are being hastily passed around.
  • The same rule applies if a character is down and another player uses their potion for the downed character, it will take an action to administer the potion carefully to ensure the downed target drinks it without choking.
• If a player wants to drop their current weapon to draw another, this takes a bonus action. However, that weapon is considered dropped which requires an action to pick up – and if the player forgets to pick the weapon up before leaving the area, the weapon is considered lost. It takes a full action to properly swap weapons (sheath a sword and draw a bow, for example).

Inspiration

• Inspiration gained (for great roleplaying, cool ideas, etc.) go away after a Long Rest. The idea of the Inspiration is that you were inspired by something in that moment and are amped up on adrenaline. This way, something you did four sessions ago and got inspiration for, is used much later. It should ideally be sometime during the session that the Inspiration was gained, except for when Inspiration is given at the end of a session (for example).
• Nikalos Inspiration. I do “Christmas” events where a human who resembles Santa Claus often seeks out adventurers to help him in whatever his latest mishap is. If the party successfully aids him before the night is through, he will grant Nikalos Inspiration which unlike normal Inspiration – does not go away until it’s used. The Nikalos Inspiration can stack with normal Inspiration. However, should they go an entire year and another Nikalos event happens – and they still have the previous Nikalos Inspiration – it can not stack with another Nikalos Inspiration.

Resting out in the Wild and Long Rest

• Because of the multiple ways I make dying very difficult in the game (Medicine checks being able to stabilize someone and prevent Death Saves) – while camping in the wild, for long rests, it will restore all powers, abilities, and spell slots – but does not recover health. The rationale being that while out on the wild, you’re not sleeping in a comfortable bed. So Hit Dice can be used during a Long Rest in the wild (similar to a short rest) to regain Hit Points. The Hit Dice recovery is flavored as spending that time bandaging wounds (rather than wounds simply magically healing, especially at later levels where you can go from 5 hit points back to 100 hit points just because you Long Rested in the wild). If the player has a bed roll, then they get the benefits of a full rest (including health).
• If they find a cabin in the woods, for example – they’d get the full benefits of a long rest, where health is recovered (or some other magical means where they’re sleeping comfortably if not inside an Inn).

Levels 1 through 3 and Death Saves –

• Combat can be fatal, very easily early levels. A creature who scores a critical hit and rolls 6 damage can down a character. So for levels 1-3, I have a house rule that you can bleed out to -10 health before a Death Save needs to be made.
• Every turn that the character is not stabilized, they bleed out another hit point of damage on their turn.
• A character can be stabilized by a Medicine check of DC 10 (that costs them an Action), or a Healing Potion / Healing Spell.
  • Healing Downed Targets
  • When doing a Medicine Check – every point over the DC is considered a point of “healing.” For example, with the Medicine Check DC of 10 – if someone rolls a 15 on their Medicine check, they can restore 5 health points to the individual. However, the most they can restore someone to is back to 0 with medicine checks. So if the target is at -3 health, and the person rolling the Medicine Check rolled a 15 – they’d only apply 3 points of the 5 to get them to 0 (where they’re considered, simply unconscious and no longer bleeding out). From here, it would require potions, spells or a long rest to regain consciousness.
  • A Natural 20 Medicine Check automatically restores the character’s health pool 10 points (even beyond unconsciousness). For example, if a character is at -1 health, and someone rolls a Natural 20 Medicine check, the target is not only stabilized, but given 10 points to apply to their health pool – in which case the target in the example would then be 9 health.
  • Every Medicine Check attempt below 10 invokes another hit (1) point of damage. Unlike the success roll – it is not 1 point for every point below 10. It’s simply 1 point of damage. Unless…
  • A Critical Fail (Natural 1) invokes 2 points of damage.
  • Any Healing Spells / Healing Potions if the target is in the negative will only bring the target up to 0. For example, if the target is at -3 and gets a Heal (whether from a spell or potion) that restores 8 health – the target would only get 3 back and be at 0 (where they’re considered unconscious and no longer bleeding out). Once the target is at 0, all healing potions and healing spells would work normally, restoring the health that is rolled for.
• Once players reach level 4, they’re more experienced and have more health where Death Saves are then done at 0 health going forward.

Magic Items

• Bag of Holding
  • During a session where the party encountered custom creatures I’d made known as Sand Sharks – the party mentioned how one of them was devouring a sand giant (another custom monster) – and questioned how big a sand shark’s gullet was – and we joked about it being a bag of holding, so I decided that – that’s what’s required to make a Bag of Holding.

Giving the HELP action on a Skill check

• The person giving the Help action must be proficient in the skill as well
• This ensures that a Fighter, for example, can’t give a Help action for the Rogue to picking locks; as it’s not logical that someone who isn’t proficient in the skill could offer any good, logical advise that would count as a help action