What 5e variant/house rules do you play with that work?
What 5e variant/house rules do you play with that work?
I'll be DMing some more 5e soon and I want to take the opportunity to try some different ways of playing (I'll post my own suggestions as comments so they can start their own discussion threads). What alternate rules have you tried that you thought worked well? They can be larger changes to the game or little QoL tweaks (though if you can respond to the suggestion with "at this point just play [different game] instead" then that's probably more than what I'm looking for!)
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QoL: PCs can choose to permanently drop down the initiative order
I believe this was just a thing you could do in older editions but there are no rules for it in 5e. Sometimes going first doesn't work well for teamwork (e.g. your Shield Master going directly before the enemy so they get up after each shove before anyone can attack them while they're prone), so letting you drop down the order can help without giving you a freebie (i.e. the enemy might get an extra go against you). I've not encountered any problems with this yet!
I agree with this but it only works in the first round. You can drop once into any slot you want but only at the first round. This stops any shenanigans about extending a powerful spell for longer
I counter that by counting both the original turn and the delayed turn against spell duration. It lets people continue delaying (I’ll even let them go back to the top of initiative order in the following round if they want) without breaking spell duration too much.
For example:
- I roll 20 on initiative and cast Faerie Fire during round 1, it will last for 10 rounds (1 minute). At the end of this turn, Faerie Fire has 9 rounds left.
- At initiative count 20 on the second round, I decide to delay my turn until initiative count 10. Faerie Fire has 8 rounds left.
- At initiative count 10 on the second round, I take my turn as normal. Faerie Fire has 7 rounds left.
Sounds like a lot of tracking to me. But whatever works for you
I track how long spells or conditions last by just scribbling down the condition and a duration on my initiative sheet.
For example if the Barbarian rages I’ll just write “Rage - 10” and each round I add a tally, when we hit 10 it’s over. So there’s no “extra” tracking, if someone delays their turn I just add a tally mark.
It might be a bit harder on digital tabletops if you have to go in and edit things.
That's a good idea. I tried doing something like this in a one shot once as a test : Any PC or monster could voluntarily delay their initiative to anything lower than it currently is. It was a disaster. Very hard to keep track of and exploitable with spells, like you mention.
But restricting it to the first round and making it permanent...that might work.
It makes thematic in game sense as well. You are quick enough to notice that you are quicker than before Xanador the Magnificent so you wait a beat. After that that first second everyone is moving as quick as possible
Good point, I've not encountered anyone trying that exploit but I'll definitely nick that caveat!