House Rules Main Listing

House Rules

This article is intended to detail the house rules being used in the games that I run for this setting. The main purpose of these changes is to make the game fun and dynamic without departing too far from the 5e rules as written. The changes are partially taken from other sources and partially my own homebrew, but none of them will limit or remove things that are possible RAW. (Except maybe for incredibly rare, really dumb cheese) I prefer to buff things that are weak rather than nerf things that are strong!

Changes to flanking

Flanking is a poorly designed mechanic that many people have argued about for a long time. It is too easy to just stand on opposite sides of a monster and gain free advantage when it is used, but removing it also removes a motivation for tactical positioning in combat, which is understandably a good thing. I have therefore decided to replace flanking with a pair of separate mechanics- backstabbing and swarming.

Backstabbing

A creature can gain advantage on an attack by striking from behind - this is known as a backstab, and is reminiscent of the familiar flanking rules. When engaging a hostile creature that is aware of your presence and not engaged in melee combat with any other creatures, they will automatically turn to face you, no matter which direction you approach from. However, if a creature isn't aware of your presence, and you have rolled a sufficient stealth check to not be detected by that creature, approaching from outside its field of view allows you to attack with advantage. (Note that some creatures may have blindsight, tremorsense or a 360 degree field of view that makes this approach ineffective)

After being hit from behind, a creature becomes aware and turns around if they are able to, meaning if they do additional attacks will no longer have advantage as you are now engaged in face to face melee combat.

If a creature is engaged in melee combat with another creature hostile to them, they are unable to freely turn around and therefore approaching from behind allows you to have backstab advantage on attacks, regardless of that creatures awareness. On its turn, a creature engaged with multiple hostile creatures may turn to face any one of their attackers in order to make an attack against them, and can end its turn facing whichever opponent it chooses. You have advantage if you are attacking a creature from directly behind them, but if the creature is facing you and there is an ally behind them and opposite you, you do not have advantage.

Some monsters don't have ordinary humanoid forms, and so in cases where monsters have multiple heads or can attack from any direction, backstabbing becomes effectively impossible, as there is no vulnerable opening to exploit.

It is also possible for a creature to avoid being backstabbed by standing with their back against a wall or obstacle, like a tree or pillar, or by two allied creatures fighting back-to-back.

Potions

The most significant bolt-on homebrew that I'm using is a system I have developed myself - potions! Potions are a fun aspect of living in a magical world that I feel aren't fully realised in D&D, and so I created the system myself! Interestingly, the potion system indirectly buffs martial characters, since they benefit more from potion buffs, and throwing a potion uses an attack action, that allows characters with extra attack to throw a potion as part of their attacks. This helps to close the gap between martials and casters at later levels and make martial combat more interesting, as well as introducing a fun downtime activity! Potions: (insert link)