Homebrew Rules

Article Perspective: meta

1. Weapon Swapping and Interacting with Weapons

Relevant links:

• Interacting with Objects Around You
• Use an Object
• Dual Wielder Feat

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

5e’s ‘interacting with objects’ ruling can make interacting with weapons confusing and oddly punishing. This is homebrew is a clarification and improvement of the ‘interacting with objects’ ruling when involving weapons as well as a collateral slight buff to the Dual Wielder feat to reflect the ruling improvements.

The Rules as Written

Drawing a weapon from a state where you did not have a weapon drawn in that hand:

Drawing ONE weapon with a FREE hand is a free action ONCE PER TURN. This action is performed in tandem with an action or a movement. This can change to TWO weapons by the Dual Wielder Feat which states

You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one

Sheathing a weapon to gain a free hand works the same way as the above operation of drawing a weapon.

Swapping an equipped weapon with another weapon:

Example A - Sheathing the first weapon and drawing the new weapon: This takes your one free action from ‘interacting with objects’ and a Full Action. Why? - You may interact with one object for free per turn (stated in the ‘interacting with objects’ rule). Additional interactions with objects on the same turn must use a Full Action. So, to swap a weapon you use a free action to sheathe your current weapon and a Full Action to draw the new weapon.
Example B - Dropping the first weapon and drawing the new weapon: This is a House Interpretation - This only takes your free action from ‘interacting with objects’. Why? - Dropping something that is already in your hand is effortless. Therefore, you essentially just need to draw a sheathed weapon with your free action given by the ‘interacting with objects’ rule. Yet, your first weapon will remain to lie on the floor.
Example C - Sheathing the first weapon and picking up a weapon from the floor: This takes your one free action from ‘interacting with objects’ and a Full Action. Why? - You may interact with one object for free per turn (stated in the ‘interacting with objects’ rule). Additional interactions with objects on the same turn must use a Full Action. So, to swap a weapon you use a free action to sheathe your current weapon and a Full Action to pick up the weapon from the ground.

Homebrew Ruling

Why bone the play so hard for weapon swaps? Our homebrew approach for weapon swaps is the following:

• Without Dual Wielder Feat:
  • Drop a weapon onto the ground and pull out a different one: free action
  • Put a weapon into your inventory (free action) and pull out a new one (Bonus Action): costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Putting a weapon into your inventory (free action) and picking up a weapon from the floor (Bonus Action): costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Putting a weapon into your inventory (free action) and pulling out TWO new weapons (Bonus Action for first weapon and Full Action for the second weapon): costs your full action, bonus action, and your free action
  • Putting two weapons into your inventory (free action and Bonus Action) and pulling out TWO new weapons (IMPOSSIBLE because you only can use your Full Action to pull out one weapon): Not Possible
• With Dual Wielder Feat:
  • Drop a weapon onto the ground and pull out a different one: free action
  • Putting a one-handed weapon into your inventory and pulling out a new one-handed weapon: only costs your free action
  • Putting a one-handed weapon into your inventory and picking up a one-handed weapon from the floor: costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Putting a one-handed weapon into your inventory and picking up a one-handed weapon from the floor then also stashing that weapon in your inventory: costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Putting TWO one-handed weapons into your inventory (free action) and pulling out a new one-handed weapon (Bonus Action): costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Putting TWO one-handed weapons into your inventory (free action) and pulling out TWO new one-handed weapons (Bonus Action): costs your bonus action and your free action
  • Dropping one or two one-handed weapons onto the ground and pulling out one or two new one-handed weapons from inventory: free action

In summary:

Without the Dual Wielder Feat - your first interaction (that isn't dropping) with a weapon expends your free action, then an additional interaction costs your bonus action, then another additional interaction costs your full action.
With the Dual Wielder Feat - your first set of TWO interactions (that isn't dropping) with ONE-HANDED weapons expends your free action, then your second set of TWO interactions costs your Bonus Action, then an additional set of TWO interactions costs your Full Action.

2. Euclidean Space

Relevant Links:

• Movement

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

5e's 5ft diagonals make aerial combat and circular spell effects absolutely mind-numbingly complicated because it really just doesn't make sense. The 5ft diagonals were an attempt to simplify the game, but actually ended up making is way harder to conceptualize and think through with the table. This homebrew rule simply adopts proper Euclidean Space for diagonals

3. Ready Action can have up to two conditions

Relevant Links:

• Ready Action

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

5e's Ready Action doesn't allow the degree of flexibility that is needed to really leverage them tactically. This homebrew rule extends the definition of the Ready Action to allow for more complex conditions

The Rules as Written

The Ready Action description uses the following simple examples:

"If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever that opens it"
and
"If the goblin steps next to me, I move away"

In the above examples, the conditions are "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor" and "If the goblin steps next to me" while the resulting readied actions are "I'll pull the lever that opens it" and "I move away" respectively. These are fine examples, but they leave most people interpreting that the condition must be a somewhat simple expression. This leaves much to be desired for the tactical player wanting to leverage Ready Actions creatively.

Homebrew Ruling

In our homebrew ruling, we all for the Ready Action condition to be a boolean expression of up to two operands. Such as "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor OR the goblin steps next to me, I'll pull the lever to open the door." In this example, "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor" and "the goblin steps next to me" are the operands while "OR" is the boolean operator.

Boolean Operators:

The basic boolean operators are AND, OR, and the modifier NOT. Although these three operators are the most common, you can use any recognized boolean.
The three basic operators work as follows: AND - both operands must be true for the condition to be met OR - one OR both operands must be true for the condition to be met NOT - is a modifier to negate the state of an operand (like if you want the condition to be met with something is NOT true)

Ready Condition	If operand 1 is	If operand 2 is	Then the ready condition is
Operand 1 AND Operand 2	True	True	True
Operand 1 AND Operand 2	True	False	False
Operand 1 AND Operand 2	False	True	False
Operand 1 AND NOT Operand 2	True	False	True
Operand 1 OR Operand 2	True	False	True
Operand 1 OR Operand 2	True	True	True
Operand 1 OR Operand 2	False	False	False
Operand 1 OR NOT Operand 2	False	False	True

AND isn't actually that useful

As stated in the ruling for Ready Action:

When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger.

You have flexibility on whether to react on a trigger instance. This means the AND operator is substantially less useful because you can just ignore triggers until multiple conditions are true, so OR is really going to be the one operator highlighted in these rules. Yet, I welcome all to still use AND for preciseness if they'd like. I also welcome people to think of an edge case where AND is actually useful.

Examples

In the following examples, the operands will be in red, the operators will be bolded and in blue, and the readied action will be in green:

• If the guard attacks any of my allies OR any of my allies look bloodied, then I will heal them.
• If any of my allies are about to attack with their weapon OR are about to get hit with a hostile spell, then I will cast Bless on them.
• If an enemy is about to enter my melee range OR enters the melee range of my cleric, then I will attack them with my bow.

4. Extra Attack as a part of a Ready Action

Relevant Links:

• Extra Attack
• Sage Advice on Ready Action + Extra Attack

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

5e technically states Extra Attack can only be performed "whenever you take the Attack action on your turn". Crawford confirmed this rule in Sage Advice. But honestly... just fuck Sage Advice and the Extra Attack wording in this case... if you can ready a spell cast with only having to concentrate and risk the spell slot, then you should definitely be able to Extra Attack on a Ready. Martials need all the love they can get. This homebrew rule states that you can indeed use Extra Attack as a part of a Ready Action.

5. Martials get some basic battlemaster maneuvers

Relevant Links:

• Homebrew Feat for Martials

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues get the short end of the stick when it comes to utility during combat. Too often do martials feel like the TTRPG version of a clicking simulator game in combat. To help remedy this, the following homebrew feat is given to all fighters, barbarians, and rougues at level 1: https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/932006-grand-martial-adept. This feat gives access to a few of the maneuvers for the Battle Master fighter subclass.

6. Legendary Assistance

Relevant Links:

• Homebrew Feat for Legendary Assistance

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

5e has extremely limit in the realm of player-to-player interactions in the heat of combat. Additionally, the out of turn activity for a single player is nearly nonexistent cause players to get bored and distracted easily on their turn. To remedy this, a homebrew mecahnic called Legendary Assistance is currently being playtested at the table. https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/1055592-legendary-assistance

7. ASIs give both feat and ability score increase.

Relevant Links:

How does this rule benefit/improve gameplay?

There is a lack of character customization for a lot of classes in DnD 5e. This helps address that ruleset hole.