Mechanics
No Animal Companions
We have a large party, and the action economy is already in shambles: you vastly outnumber monsters (requiring some balance adjustments), and combat rounds take a long time. To prevent this from getting worse,
we do not play with any animal companions or pets. If you want to have a mouse that sits on your shoulder but has no turn in combat or anything like that, we can discuss it. But if we allow pets and companions the party size can effectively double. I know this disproportionately impacts some characters more than others (Rangers, especially), but I hope that by knowing this up front, you can make informed decisions.
Master Plans
When you want to hatch an elaborate operation with days of planning, we have the Master Plan mechanics for that.
Group Checks
When you're all doing something simultaneously (sneaking, investigating an area, etc.) I may call for a group check. In this situation, everyone rolls. But one success or failure is insufficient to make-or-break the result. If at least half the party succeeds, then it is a success. This prevents one player with heavy armor from always giving away the party's location.
Unattune as an action
You can unattune from an attuned item as an action, unless the item description specifies otherwise. Attuning still requires 1 hour.
XP and Leveling
You get XP for meaningful encounters. This won't usually be a problem, but you can't kill rats all day for a year to get to Level 20.
At the end of every session, the party also answers three questions by consensus. For each "yes", you gain a medium encounter's worth of XP. The party owns this decision – not the GM.
- Did we learn something new and important about the world? If so, what?
- Did we overcome a notable obstacle, monster, or threat? If so, what?
- Did we discover or loot a memorable treasure? If so, what?
Class-specific houserules
There are some class-specific houserules, described on the
Creating a Character page.
Pause to Discuss PVP
Player-vs-Player situations can be weird sometimes, and just rolling dice in those scenarios can make people feel like they’ve lost agency. In this situation, I like to pause and collaboratively hash out how we want this to go.
Monstrous Inspiration
In the official rules, legendary monsters have "Legendary Resistance", which allows them to simply negate a player's spell or action a limited number of times. This is un-fun: I don't like using it, and players don't like it when I do. But ignoring it makes powerful creatures significantly more vulnerable. Instead, I give them monstrous inspiration. A legendary creature has monstrous inspiration die equal to their number of legendary resistances. The size of the die varies based on their challenge rating.
When a legendary creature fails a saving throw, it can roll one monstrous inspiration die. The value of that die is added to their total result.
Movement and positioning
Moving through allies is not difficult terrain
You are a large party, and it sucks to always feel bogged down. You can move through one another freely, but can't stop in (or attack from) an ally's space.
Flanking
You gain advantage when you are flanking an enemy. To be counted as a flank, a straight line from the center of your character's token to the center of your ally's token must go through the center of the enemy's token.
Flanked creatures get no advantage from flanking
This helps avoid the ridiculous conga line of advantage.
Spellcasting
Some curses/conditions have more involved cures
Greater restoration, lesser restoration, remove curse, and lay on hands are great, but can basically neutralize entire plot lines. Some ailments may require rare material components to cure with these spells.
Counterspelling causes wild magic surge
When a character (player or NPC) casts
counterspell, they roll on the Sorcerer's Wild Magic table. That effect occurs centered on themselves, unless the effect says otherwise.
Inspiration
Gain Inspiration on Natural 1
If you roll a natural 1 on an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw, you gain inspiration. If you have advantage and the lower roll is a natural 1 that doesn't count.
Giving Your Inspiration to Another Player
You can do this at any time – right when you earn it, or when before they make a roll.
Inspiration can be used retroactively
If you have inspiration, you can retroactively use it to re-roll. You cannot use the inspiration you gain on a natural 1 to reroll the same roll.
Homebrew
I love homebrew. We use
a lot of it. At least 1/3 of the monsters you fight are customized in some way. You'll find a bunch of magic items that are ridiculous and original to Arvor.
But if we're not careful, changing mechanics or rules can introduce a ton of unintended consequences and imbalance the game. So in general, we stick to the official rules.
If you have some homebrew you want to try, talk to me about it outside the game. I want to find ways to make it happen, but I also have to consider the broader effects.
No D&D Wiki
DandDWiki is not a real source for rules. It has some official rules, but most of its content is completely unvetted, untested, and extremely unbalanced. Please do not rely on it for a reference for your abilities or spells (use DNDBeyond for that). If you find something on DandDWiki that you like and want to try, ask me about it – but be prepared for the answer to be no.
