House Rules

The following house rules are in effect for the Mystara campaign:

Races

• From the Player's Handbook: Human, Variant Human, Dwarf (hill, mountain), Elf (high, wood), Gnome (forest, hill), Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling (lightfoot, stout)
• Shadow Elf (use the Drow stat block)
• Tortle
• Custom Lineage from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, as approved by the DM

Sources

• If using DNDBeyond, turn off all Sources other than Magic: the Gathering and Eberron

Classes and Subclasses

• Player's Handbook: any
• Xanathar's Guide to Everything: any
• Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: any
• Circle of Spores Druid: can use an Action or Bonus Action to activate Symbiotic Entity
• "Coffeelock": Warlock spell slots may not be converted to Sorcery Points
• Life Domain Cleric: Disciple of Life does not apply to Goodberry

Ability Scores

• Use the Point-Buy method.
• Players may use their ability score bonuses as suggested in Tasha's CoE (placed in whatever stats they wish).

Hit Points

• Players may take the average hit points when gaining a level or roll the appropriate hit die and reroll 1s.

Starting Equipment

• You get the starting equipment and money listed within your class and your background.
• Starting equipment may be sold for half price during character creation.
• You may purchase other items during character creation.
• You keep any money leftover during character creation.
• New characters beyond 1st level will follow DMG starting equipment guidelines, with magic items and other adjustments as the DM sees fit.

New Players or New Characters for Existing Players

• New PCs will join at the same level as the party.

Death and Resurrection

We are using Matt Mercer's "The Fading Spirit" alternate resurrection rules:
https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/824054305355247616/photo/1
If a character is dead, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with longer than a 1 Action casting time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to 3 members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution Skill Check. The DM asks them each to make a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the DC of the check adjusted to how helpful/impactful the DM feels the contribution would be. For example, praying to the god of the devout, fallen characters may require an Intelligence (Religion) check with an easy to medium difficulty, where loudly demanding the soul of the fallen to return from the aether may require a Charisma (Intimidation) check at a very hard or nearly impossible difficulty. Advantage and disadvantage can apply here based on how perfect, or off base, the contribution offered is.
After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the characters has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul's connection to this world). For each successful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3, whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the DC by 1. Upon a successful resurrection check, the player's soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body and the ritual succeeds. On a failed check, the soul does not return and the character is lost.
Only the strongest of magical incantations can bypass this resurrection challenge, in the form of the True Resurrection or Wish spells. These spells can also restore a character to life who was lost due to a failed resurrection ritual.
If a spell with a casting time of 1 Action is used to attempt to restore life (via the Revivify spell or similar effects), no contribution skill checks are allowed. The character casting the spell makes a Rapid Resurrection check, rolling a d20 and adding their spellcasting ability modifier. The DC is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone. On a failure, the character's soul is not lost, but the resurrection fails and increases any future Resurrection check DC by 1. No further attempts can be made to restore this character to life until a resurrection spell with a casting time longer than 1 Action is attempted.

Inspiration

• You don't have to spend Inspiration prior to a roll - you can spend it after making a roll to get a second roll and take the better of the two.
• Inspiration may be carried over to the next session at the DM's discretion.

Long Rest

• Characters can spend Hit Dice at the beginning of the rest.
• When the rest is completed, characters regain all lost hit points.
• When the rest is completed, characters get back half their Hit Dice (round down, minimum of one die).

Short Rest

• Short rests take 20 minutes (or more, if the party chooses).
• Short rests are limited to three per day.

Spells

• Magic Missile: roll damage once and apply for each missile. As the missiles all strike at once they are a single source of damage - if triggering a Concentration Check or Death Save they only do so once on a target, regardless of how many missiles hit it.
• Silvery Barbs: banned.
• True Polymorph: if concentrated on for the full duration, only a dispel will cancel the change - reducing to zero hit points does not end the spell.
• All Conjure or Summon spells or the like: they can only summon a maximum of 4 creatures.

Potions

• You may drink a potion with a Bonus Action or a regular action.
• Administering a potion, such as giving a healing potion to a downed PC, is still a regular Action.
• Drinking a healing potion with a regular Action heals for the maximum.
• Drinking a healing potion with a Bonus Action, or administering it to an unconscious creature, heals for the amount rolled, as normal.

Skill Checks Using Alternate Abilities

An option from the DMG. If you want to use an alternate ability for a skill check, ask the DM and state your case for doing so. Examples: a Barbarian using Strength for an Intimidation check (instead of Charisma) or a character using Constitution for an Athletics check to tread water (normally Strength).

Unarmored Defense

If a character could have Unarmored Defense from multiple sources, normally not allowed by RAW, they may choose which version to use when calculating their AC. They can only change the version they're using when gaining the additional ability (ex: when multi-classing) or when gaining a level.