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Houseruled Spells & Abilities

Spells That Make Food Or Light

Most of these spells have seen a nerf (by me your cruel DM) and the most common nerf is that the spell now requires and consumes components.

The RAW in 5e is that if a material component costs money (like the 300 gp diamond for Revivify), you need to actually have the component. And if the material component doesn't cost money, there are two ways to get around the material component: you can assume that it's something you already happened to have in your component bag, or, you can use your arcane focus instead of the material component. (Of course if you happen to not have your component bag or your arcane focus at hand, but happen to have the actual material components, that's good too.)

I think this is a very good rule and I want to keep using it.

However I'm going to add prices to some of the components, for light-giving and food-giving spells. I want you guys to be starving and lost in the dark.

New players… I don't want them to be overwhelmed by all the rules, both RAW and house. Anyone who can genuinely convince me that they were unaware of this rule are assumed to have components enough for four uses of these spells and I'll also waive the weight requirement for those four uses.

Continual Flame

In the RAW, this already costs 50GP, but then burns forever.

In the house rule:

Put in rubies worth… to get…
50 GP 50 hours
100 GP 100 hours
500 GP 1000 hours (over a month)
2500 GP 10000 hours (over a year)
12500 GP 100000 hours (over a decade)
Generally, for n bigger than two: 10ⁿ/2⁽ⁿ¯²⁾ GP10ⁿ hours

Rubies are tiny items regardless of value. Finding that many rubies, or rubies of especially high value, is a quest of its own…

Dancing Lights

A bit of phosphorus or wychwood, or a glowworm. Is a tiny item (coin sized) and costs two copper pieces.

Daylight

Not a component related nerf, but: unless you use your highest slot level on this spell, it doesn't create light, it just turns a light you already have (such as a weak little candle) into strong 60/60 daylight. But if you spend the highest slot level you have, it can still create daylight as per the RAW. For example if you are a level 7 cleric if you spend a 4 level slot, it can create daylight. If you spend a 3 level slot, it can only transform light into daylight.

Goodberry

A sprig of mistletoe worth 5sp and is a small item.

Half the weight compared to a day's ration and feeds ten people instead of one? A good deal for one slot.

Leomund's Tiny Hut

Firefly or phosphorescent moss as per Light, or rubies as per Continual Flame. This is only if you want light in there, you can sit in the darkness for free.

Light

A firefly or phosphorescent moss. A 360 minute pack costs 1 silver and is a small item. You can split up those minutes however you want, doesn't have to be strict hours. The light still goes out after one hour and requires recasting.

Produce Flame

Dry balsa wood. A six-pack costs 1 silver and is a small item.

Purify Water

Works normally.

Create Food and Water

Can't reset starvation days, but does count as eating normally for the day.

Other food- and light- giving spells

Just because I missed them doesn't mean that they don't cost. Let me know and I'll add them here.

Movement and targets

Generally, all spells that hit an area now affect a specific number of people. (This is an option from the DMG.)

The general formula is the area divided by five and rounded up. Except cones, divide them by ten. And lines, divide them by thirty. So a 100 long line can hit 4 people.

Some spells and abilities I've created specific rules for. I do these as we go and so far it's four:

Fire Elemental "walk-through"

  • In ordinary fight, no more than 6 people can be lit just by moving through them. Also, if you want to light people who are in separate mêlée groups, you need to light everyone who is in your group before moving on.

Thorn Whip

Thorn Whip in ordinary fight:

  • If you attack someone in another mêlée group, you pull them out of it.
  • If you attack someone outside any mêlée group, you may pull them into yours.
  • If you attack someone in your own mêlée group, it's just another attack.
  • You can also pull them into caltrops or similar, instead.

Thorn Whip in Chase or Volley works with the listed ranges.

Getting pulled out doesn't trigger opportunity attacks, the rule book says:

"You also don’t provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy."

Healing Spirit

(BTW, Healing Spirit saw an official nerf on Crawford's Twitter — they don't like changing the game so they framed it as "a suggested houserule". But, I think with clear rules for targets in areas of effect it's not needed.)

  • In an ordinary fight, you can move in and out of the spirit using your movement. Remember that joining up large mêlée groups in order to take advantage of the Healing Spirit enables the monsters to sidestep the three-medium-per-target limit.
  • Outside of ordinary fight, only one person per round can be healed. So the ten d6 are divided up among the persons to be healed. This brings it about on par with Prayer of Healing.

(This is neither Haeck's nor Crawford's suggestion but is similar to the commenter FeyPhoenix on D&D Beyond. Seems like we had the same idea.)

Mending Ammo

Reactions & countering

Counterspell

XGE opened a can of worms on how to adjudicate counterspelling. But, I don't want to change our normal flow of the game too much, even if our normal flow makes Counterspell stronger than Brian intended. So this is how it's gonna work.

There are now two ways of casting a spell. Once is the normal way we've been using, "Drooma you get five fireballs to the dome". In that case, you can counterspell the fireballs right away as normal. And one is saying "I'm casting a mysterious spell". In which case you can either try to counterspell it unseen, without knowing what it is, or you can try to identify it (int ability check vs DC15 + [Spell level], adv if it's from your own class), but not both. But two people can work as a team, one to identify and one to counter.

Casting "mysterious spells" this way is something that both player characters and non-player characters can do. It is annoying af but that's how it's gonna be. Most of the time the spells cast probably won't be "mysterious" and we'll just go "ok you get a couple of lightning bolts roll saves" "nuh-uh, I'm countering that!" and that is fine.

If the spell casting is imperceptible (such as Subtle Spell sorcerer ability or Innate Spellcasting monster ability, if that ability removes all three component requirements), that means it's also uncounterable! #scragnoth

TL;DR: saying your spell is "mysterious" means that that's people's window to counter it unseen (or roll to identify it); otherwise you can just counter it normally.

Moments of Serendipity

School of Divination's portent feature now can only give rolls higher than ten. Either roll a d20 and if you get lower than ten add ten, or roll 1d10+10.

Wall of Force

This spell is changed so that

  • You can't telefrag enemies with it
  • You can't squeeze them between the wall and another object, wall, or floor.
  • You can push them prone but they can crawl out
  • If you want to keep them trapped in there, use the Dome shape. Two medium (or smaller) targets or one large target.

Find Familiar

The PHB says “the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast”. For Zakharan characters, the familiar is instead always an elemental instead of its normal type.

First Round of Combat

So we don't really use "rounds" or "turn order" but in the Fight Book™ I keep track of how many turns everyone has taken (a tally mark when they spend their main action, or when they dodge, or when they are surprised).

So don't worry, even if things happen in no particular order in the chaos of battle, these tally marks make it so that everyone gets the same amount of turns.

If Bob has one tally mark from taking a turn, and Alice has three (from taking two turns and then dodging once); Bob will get to act before Alice does.

There are things that work in the first round of combat, like Assassinate (Assassin subclass feature) and Dread Ambusher (Gloom Stalker subclass feature).

But reading them closely I see that they don't refer to rounds, they refer to turns, making them easier to understand even with our system.

Assassinate

"Any creature who hasn't taken a turn yet" counts main actions obv, dodging or being surprised don't make you immune to assassination.

Dread Ambusher

"At the start of your first turn of each combat" means in association with your first main action each combat.

Climbing

Second-Story Work

This is a level three Thief feature. You gain two additional benefits, in addition to the ones listed (faster climbing speed and longer jumps).

Level 9 Monk Unarmored Movement

You can run along routes abseling, sloping, and hard climbs without rolling. If you end your movement there, you need to climb in order to grab hold.

Assassin whamma jamma

These abilities are stolen from an OSR-game, GLOG by Arnold Kemp. I wanted to buff the assassin a little bit!

Infiltration Expertise

Starting at 9th level, you gain the ability to create false identities for yourself. At any time, you may declare that you are walking off. Later on in the session, you may reveal yourself to have been a minor NPC in the background “all along” as long as there actually are minor NPCs present. You can walk back on at any time, even climbing in a window. This ability is limited by plausibility. You can't have been seen at the same time as the NPC since they are (retroactively revealed to be) an alternate persona you've created and maintained. Creating a persona like this costs 25 GP and 7 full workdays, but, you can pay that retroactively, after the reveal, by removing any 7 days from your character's past and by paying 25 GP. (However, if you neither have spent 25 GP on this in the past nor have it available now, you can't use this ability.)

Impostor

At 13th level, you no longer have to create personas for your Infiltration Expertise, you learn to replace pre-existing people, body snatcher style. You need to study them for at least three hours. This doesn't cost GP.

Rakish Audacity Initiative

  • Light? If equal,
  • Rakish Audacity or other class ability? If equal,
  • Home turf

    Rogue tool expertise

Rogue can get expertise in two tools instead of an ability; it only works on some tools, see expertise for full details.

Dodging

The dodge action is normally a combat action that anyone can take as a main action.

As a house rule, you can choose take it as a reaction instead; this costs you your upcoming main action.

Patient Defense

This is a level 2 monk Ki feature that allows you to spend a bonus action to dodge. This one, we still play like the RAW, but that's worth pointing out here since our normal dodge action works differently. (It's still a really good use of a bonus action, if you predict you are going to be attacked!)

Feats

Skilled

Changed so it works with ability check proficiencies.

Weapon Maneuvers

If you are using the third party book “Beyond Damage Dice” (which isn’t recommended because the game is already complicated enough) here are my rulings on the weapon maneuver’s there. Also all the new weapons from Midgard and Southlands are banned so don’t even. Note that you don’t have to be a specific class to use these weapon maneuvers (they’re not battlemaster only).

  • Banned maneuvers Bruising Blow, Piercing Point, Rapid Shot. Banned for aesthetic reasons because they look dumb. The other forty or so maneuvers in there are ok.
  • Buffed maneuvers Distracting Shot’s effect now lasts until end of your ally’s next round. So that you don’t get screwed over by our weird initiative “system”.
  • Nerfed maneuvers The poison vials now need components to create.