smegJul 10, 2023

What 5e variant/house rules do you play with that work?

https://feddit.uk/post/455899

What 5e variant/house rules do you play with that work? - Feddit UK

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!)

Show threadsmegJul 10, 2023

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!

Show threaddumplesJul 10, 2023
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
Show threadsmeg
Good point, I’ve not encountered anyone trying that exploit but I’ll definitely nick that caveat!
Jul 10, 2023 at 3:32pmWeb