Rules Variations
Game Masters all have different ways of running their games to change the way the game is played and the story evolves. Adding or alter rules caters the table to particular flavor of experience. While I try to stay to the core rules of 5e, there are many ways I differ. Here you will find specific interpretations or rules changes that I tend to run my games with. This is an incomplete list I hope to update as I realize all of the specific points I have developed over the years.
Perception Not Used for Traps or Tracking
Core 5e uses Perception to spot everything: monsters, ladders, traps, tracks, sigils. While it is elegant design, it makes it a key skill for everyone to take. Despite that, after you find the thing, another roll is sometimes needed to even identify what you just found. Survival is then needed to identify tracks and Investigation is needed to figure out how the trap works that you just found (which may then need a Thieves Tools check to disarm). To reduce everyone's reliance on Perception and to prevent a “roll-until-you-fail” play style, I use a Survival roll to find and identify tracks and likewise an Investigation roll for traps. One DC is for finding them and then higher DCs determine how much info you get about them beyond the basic descriptions.
Deliberately Attacking Yourself (or allowing an ally to hit you) is an Auto-Crit
Sometimes, players want to attack themselves to 'game the system' with certain mechanics. Instead of denying the course, I make doing so a definitive choice. Hit Points represent much more than physical health. They are morale, evasion, luck, and perseverance. If you are willing taking a solid hit, you are cutting through all of those last moment factors. Depending on the character, attack, and situation, this may be lethal. I want to make sure that if at any point in the narrative you willingly assault yourself or be assaulted, it matters.
You Can't Help if you Don't Know What You Are Doing
Outside of combat, it can be tempting to try to Help with every kind of roll to gain Advantage. I limit situations that can be helped. If a check is requiring a Tool Proficiency or an area of knowledge is specialized, you may or may not receive advantage from someone attempting to Help.
Two Ability Check Limit
For most knowledge based rolls, I allow up to two players to make an attempt at knowing the information out of the blue. I would rather the dice be able to tell me that fate meant the party not to know something than incentivize large party sizes purely for more dice to hit the table and guarantee an eventual success.
"Simple Rolls": Long Time Tasks Don't Benefit from Short Time Bonuses
Tasks such as large complicated builds, sweeping the city for information, or downtime checks to determine general performance cannot be influenced by features such as Guidance, Flash of Genius, or Bardic Inspiration. Most of these feature symbolize minute moments of luck or effort that cannot be sustained through the day. In rare cases, Guidance can benefit such a situation if the character casting the spell is different than the one doing the task and the caster spends the same amount of time in deep prayer or the like with their full attention on the task. During the game, this will be referred to as making a "Simple _________ Check".
Switching Out Features on Level Up
Despite there being rules for switching out class features (Sorcerer/Warlock spells/invocations in the PHB, other features in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything), I let players switch out many character features at level up if they aren't having fun with them or they are functioning in my GM style like the player thought they would. I limit these switches to level-ups to dissuade picking up the perfect solution to a problem the moment it is needed. The main exception to this is if the player is playing a new character (either at the start of a campaign or as a replacement character). New builds are hard to determine so I am loose with these change outs early on in the character's introduction. If a character ability has been significant to the story up until this point or it represents escalating knowledge such as a wizard/ritual books, they may not be so easily changed out.
Curses are Sticky
Curses are not always as easy to get rid of as a simple Remove Curse spell. The spell is proficient at removing spells such as Hex, Bestow Curse, class features (such as Hexblade's Curse) and certain monster special abilities (such as Mummy Rot) as well as Unattuning cursed Common and Uncommon magic items. Other curses may have hurdles to overcome such as a cursed Very Rare wondrous item requiring the noon sun or the wrath of a hag requiring restitution or death. In most cases, these greater hurdles are associate with a greater level of power (such as the magic items) or a greater narrative beat that cause the curse in the first place.
Cursed Magic Items are Dormant
If a magic item is cursed, it may not show immediately. Even an identify spell will miss a dormant curse on a first pass. In most cases, the curse must first be awakened. Only once in an active state will an Identify spell tell you anything about it. Usually, a dormant curse on an item is awakened upon attunement. When an item becomes unattuned it will return to a dormant state.
Siege Engines are Separate from Other Weapons
Most class features and abilities are based on mundane adventuring equipment. For balance and worldbuilding purposes, siege engines are not impacted by many of these features. For instance, ballista may require a three person team to attack with the weapon each round. A level 2 Artificer's Repeating Shot invocation cannot turn this three person engine into a one person railgun (though I did just deliberately spread this idea to you readers to see if your other GMs are kind enough to let you :) )
Dangers of Repetition
There may be times during a campaign where an extended period of downtime may allow for unorthodox tactics to meatgrinder through a dangerous task. For example, the Contact Other Plane spell risks temporary insanity if you fail the spells saving throw when casting it. The insanity go away after a Long Rest. If a character has a month of downtime, it may be tempting to look at the mechanics and see that in the long term, there are no mechanical deficit if the spell is cast right before the long rest each day. In cases like this, a dense repetition of such an act may trigger more chronic or related consequences if the dice don't go your way.
Scrolls: Arcane and Divine are Different
While any player character that meets the requirements can scribe scrolls, divine scrolls cannot be copied down by wizards and ritualists into tomes. Divine miracles are distinct from arcane incantations. Unless otherwise stated, all scrolls found in my campaign default to arcane in nature.
Ritual Upkeep
Ritual spells with effects that are currently active may be upkept through additional ritual castings of the spell. The duration of the spell resets to the last casting of this spell. This allows effects such as Tiny Hut to be maintained without a moment of them dropping and reforming. All other prerequisites for the spell must be met and spellcasting still interferes with taking a Long Rest.
Parkour Falls under Athletics, not Acrobatics
While many GMs allow the Acrobatics skill to be used for climbing buildings or vaulting gaps, I maintain a separation between the Athletics and Acrobatics skills. However flavored, Athletics is for “running, jumping, climbing, swimming” and Acrobatics is for “balancing, swinging, slipping, falling, tumbling.” Keeping the distinction helps prevent blurry rules and single stat focused characters. If you do want to play a high dexterity character unsurpassed in parkour without taking Athletics, I suggest taking the Athlete feat to gain a climbing speed to prevent any need for an ability check in the first place.
Identifying an Enemy's Spell and Counterspelling are Separate Reactions
Xanathar's Guide to Everything introduced the rule that identifying a spell being cast is a reaction requiring a roll. Enforcing this rule reduces the “overpoweredness” of Counterspell by needing to decide if you want to counterspell the enemy caster before you know what is being cast. Now, sometimes I get excited and say the spell before you have the opportunity to counterspell. I won't hold that against you.
Bonus Actions are Limited to Specific Abilities
There is a habit among players to ask if they can do random things with their Bonus Action. I do limit Bonus Actions to the unique abilities gained by your character. That said, most things players want to do with a Bonus Action are more aesthetic than anything and they still happen.
Intimidation is almost always Charisma
There is an optional rule to mix and match Abilities with skill proficiencies (I use the rule a lot). One variation many GMs use is allowing beefy characters like fighters and barbarians to use Strength as their core ability for Intimidation. While I will sometimes allow this, most Intimidation rolls for me use Charisma. For me, Intimidation is about the threat of consequences or violence. Intimidation is not used for situations where you are actively beating an enemy in combat or torturing one of their allies. That is actions the PCs ARE DOING and the NPC should react accordingly. The Intimidation skill is about convincing the target that you are cold, ruthless, willing to do the horrible thing. It is almost a Deception roll in some cases. Because of that, I maintain it as a Charisma skill. If you have a low Charisma as a hulking brute, you may come off as more of a Lenny from Of Mice and Men situation. I only allow for a Strength (intimidation) roll when their was something highly relevant that just occurred using strength such as bashing through a door in pursuit or the like.
Stacking Bonus Damage Effects on the Hit, Not After the Damage Total
Many effects that allow a character to do additional damage such as the paladin's Smite or the ranger's Favored Foe should be called out when the attack hits. It can be tempting to hit, roll damage, and then wait to see if the enemy is still up before committing to bonus damage. While I will usually before forward about an enemy being on their last legs and not needing the bonus, it is much harder to tell when the enemy is still above 20% of their HP. Any descriptions or visual health bar adjustments after a hit take into account all damage done by that attack. At that point, it is too late to add in additional damage.
Variations from Published Rules
Perception Not Used for Traps or Tracking
Core 5e uses Perception to spot everything: monsters, ladders, traps, tracks, sigils. While it is elegant design, it makes it a key skill for everyone to take. Despite that, after you find the thing, another roll is sometimes needed to even identify what you just found. Survival is then needed to identify tracks and Investigation is needed to figure out how the trap works that you just found (which may then need a Thieves Tools check to disarm). To reduce everyone's reliance on Perception and to prevent a “roll-until-you-fail” play style, I use a Survival roll to find and identify tracks and likewise an Investigation roll for traps. One DC is for finding them and then higher DCs determine how much info you get about them beyond the basic descriptions.
Deliberately Attacking Yourself (or allowing an ally to hit you) is an Auto-Crit
Sometimes, players want to attack themselves to 'game the system' with certain mechanics. Instead of denying the course, I make doing so a definitive choice. Hit Points represent much more than physical health. They are morale, evasion, luck, and perseverance. If you are willing taking a solid hit, you are cutting through all of those last moment factors. Depending on the character, attack, and situation, this may be lethal. I want to make sure that if at any point in the narrative you willingly assault yourself or be assaulted, it matters.
You Can't Help if you Don't Know What You Are Doing
Outside of combat, it can be tempting to try to Help with every kind of roll to gain Advantage. I limit situations that can be helped. If a check is requiring a Tool Proficiency or an area of knowledge is specialized, you may or may not receive advantage from someone attempting to Help.
Two Ability Check Limit
For most knowledge based rolls, I allow up to two players to make an attempt at knowing the information out of the blue. I would rather the dice be able to tell me that fate meant the party not to know something than incentivize large party sizes purely for more dice to hit the table and guarantee an eventual success.
"Simple Rolls": Long Time Tasks Don't Benefit from Short Time Bonuses
Tasks such as large complicated builds, sweeping the city for information, or downtime checks to determine general performance cannot be influenced by features such as Guidance, Flash of Genius, or Bardic Inspiration. Most of these feature symbolize minute moments of luck or effort that cannot be sustained through the day. In rare cases, Guidance can benefit such a situation if the character casting the spell is different than the one doing the task and the caster spends the same amount of time in deep prayer or the like with their full attention on the task. During the game, this will be referred to as making a "Simple _________ Check".
Switching Out Features on Level Up
Despite there being rules for switching out class features (Sorcerer/Warlock spells/invocations in the PHB, other features in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything), I let players switch out many character features at level up if they aren't having fun with them or they are functioning in my GM style like the player thought they would. I limit these switches to level-ups to dissuade picking up the perfect solution to a problem the moment it is needed. The main exception to this is if the player is playing a new character (either at the start of a campaign or as a replacement character). New builds are hard to determine so I am loose with these change outs early on in the character's introduction. If a character ability has been significant to the story up until this point or it represents escalating knowledge such as a wizard/ritual books, they may not be so easily changed out.
Curses are Sticky
Curses are not always as easy to get rid of as a simple Remove Curse spell. The spell is proficient at removing spells such as Hex, Bestow Curse, class features (such as Hexblade's Curse) and certain monster special abilities (such as Mummy Rot) as well as Unattuning cursed Common and Uncommon magic items. Other curses may have hurdles to overcome such as a cursed Very Rare wondrous item requiring the noon sun or the wrath of a hag requiring restitution or death. In most cases, these greater hurdles are associate with a greater level of power (such as the magic items) or a greater narrative beat that cause the curse in the first place.
Cursed Magic Items are Dormant
If a magic item is cursed, it may not show immediately. Even an identify spell will miss a dormant curse on a first pass. In most cases, the curse must first be awakened. Only once in an active state will an Identify spell tell you anything about it. Usually, a dormant curse on an item is awakened upon attunement. When an item becomes unattuned it will return to a dormant state.
Siege Engines are Separate from Other Weapons
Most class features and abilities are based on mundane adventuring equipment. For balance and worldbuilding purposes, siege engines are not impacted by many of these features. For instance, ballista may require a three person team to attack with the weapon each round. A level 2 Artificer's Repeating Shot invocation cannot turn this three person engine into a one person railgun (though I did just deliberately spread this idea to you readers to see if your other GMs are kind enough to let you :) )
Dangers of Repetition
There may be times during a campaign where an extended period of downtime may allow for unorthodox tactics to meatgrinder through a dangerous task. For example, the Contact Other Plane spell risks temporary insanity if you fail the spells saving throw when casting it. The insanity go away after a Long Rest. If a character has a month of downtime, it may be tempting to look at the mechanics and see that in the long term, there are no mechanical deficit if the spell is cast right before the long rest each day. In cases like this, a dense repetition of such an act may trigger more chronic or related consequences if the dice don't go your way.
Scrolls: Arcane and Divine are Different
While any player character that meets the requirements can scribe scrolls, divine scrolls cannot be copied down by wizards and ritualists into tomes. Divine miracles are distinct from arcane incantations. Unless otherwise stated, all scrolls found in my campaign default to arcane in nature.
Ritual Upkeep
Ritual spells with effects that are currently active may be upkept through additional ritual castings of the spell. The duration of the spell resets to the last casting of this spell. This allows effects such as Tiny Hut to be maintained without a moment of them dropping and reforming. All other prerequisites for the spell must be met and spellcasting still interferes with taking a Long Rest.
Sometimes Overlooked Rules I Try to Keep
Parkour Falls under Athletics, not Acrobatics
While many GMs allow the Acrobatics skill to be used for climbing buildings or vaulting gaps, I maintain a separation between the Athletics and Acrobatics skills. However flavored, Athletics is for “running, jumping, climbing, swimming” and Acrobatics is for “balancing, swinging, slipping, falling, tumbling.” Keeping the distinction helps prevent blurry rules and single stat focused characters. If you do want to play a high dexterity character unsurpassed in parkour without taking Athletics, I suggest taking the Athlete feat to gain a climbing speed to prevent any need for an ability check in the first place.
Identifying an Enemy's Spell and Counterspelling are Separate Reactions
Xanathar's Guide to Everything introduced the rule that identifying a spell being cast is a reaction requiring a roll. Enforcing this rule reduces the “overpoweredness” of Counterspell by needing to decide if you want to counterspell the enemy caster before you know what is being cast. Now, sometimes I get excited and say the spell before you have the opportunity to counterspell. I won't hold that against you.
Bonus Actions are Limited to Specific Abilities
There is a habit among players to ask if they can do random things with their Bonus Action. I do limit Bonus Actions to the unique abilities gained by your character. That said, most things players want to do with a Bonus Action are more aesthetic than anything and they still happen.
Intimidation is almost always Charisma
There is an optional rule to mix and match Abilities with skill proficiencies (I use the rule a lot). One variation many GMs use is allowing beefy characters like fighters and barbarians to use Strength as their core ability for Intimidation. While I will sometimes allow this, most Intimidation rolls for me use Charisma. For me, Intimidation is about the threat of consequences or violence. Intimidation is not used for situations where you are actively beating an enemy in combat or torturing one of their allies. That is actions the PCs ARE DOING and the NPC should react accordingly. The Intimidation skill is about convincing the target that you are cold, ruthless, willing to do the horrible thing. It is almost a Deception roll in some cases. Because of that, I maintain it as a Charisma skill. If you have a low Charisma as a hulking brute, you may come off as more of a Lenny from Of Mice and Men situation. I only allow for a Strength (intimidation) roll when their was something highly relevant that just occurred using strength such as bashing through a door in pursuit or the like.
Stacking Bonus Damage Effects on the Hit, Not After the Damage Total
Many effects that allow a character to do additional damage such as the paladin's Smite or the ranger's Favored Foe should be called out when the attack hits. It can be tempting to hit, roll damage, and then wait to see if the enemy is still up before committing to bonus damage. While I will usually before forward about an enemy being on their last legs and not needing the bonus, it is much harder to tell when the enemy is still above 20% of their HP. Any descriptions or visual health bar adjustments after a hit take into account all damage done by that attack. At that point, it is too late to add in additional damage.
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