How Many Houserules Does 5E Need?

[Knaight]

It just makes it less D&D, and like they swung to the complete opposite end of the spectrum after 3.5's glut of rules and classes.

Yeah, because 4e has a real shortage of rules and classes. They're not even the opposite end of the spectrum if you restrict it to D&D games, with RPGs as a whole it's like trying to argue that red and yellow are opposite ends of the EM spectrum while there's gamma radiation and radio waves going by.

[Regitnui]

Except that's not what the post said. The post said there weren't any out of combat spells, which is flat out factually wrong. Its a meme.

So is "fighters are redundant and casters rule the roost." Need I continue from there?

Having to house rule or ban anything is a mark against the game.

So Magic the Gathering, which goes through regular official ban/unban cycles, is a really horrible game by that logic. Many, many RPGs I've read encourage houseruling mid-session when a question comes up rather than stopping play to look for an official rule. It's not just a 5e or even just a D&D thing. That's an unreasonable standard, so much so that I'm surprised anything meets your refined tastes.

Nah, I want what 4e brought to the table. It was balanced, you could have anything be the BBEG and it was fast to prep. That's it. If 5e was that way, I'd be singing its praises right along next to you people, but sadly its not.

So you want 4e. Don't say the same thing with different words, that's tautology.

Yeah, because 4e has a real shortage of rules and classes. They're not even the opposite end of the spectrum if you restrict it to D&D games, with RPGs as a whole it's like trying to argue that red and yellow are opposite ends of the EM spectrum while there's gamma radiation and radio waves going by.

4e had 4 classes with about 16 different flavours each; striker, controller, leader and defender. Again, which isn't saying it's bad, but more MMORPG-ish to 3.5's wildly simulationist bent.

[JoeJ]

lol nope. I've been DMing since early 2E, and I've DMed several high level campaigns in that time including one that went to 100+ (in 2E you just got hp past a certain point). I've countered most of my player's shenanigans. The thing is while I can play the caster/DM arms race, I don't want to. I want a game that just works, where I don't have to be a designer that creates house rules all the time or get locked into a single plot type of game (see my sig). That's what I liked about 4E. It was easy to prep for and it didn't break (there were a few things, but you had to put your entire build toward it and every feat and magic item and it only broke things at high levels). Why couldn't they have made 5E easy to prep for and not break every time someone casts a spell?

I call shenanigans. If you're that experienced as a DM then you know that the issues you're bringing up do not exist unless the DM chooses to make them exist. You're twisting the rules in order to "prove" the game is broken, when in reality you're the one who broke it.

lol, the highest AC a Wizard can obtain is around 23 with every round Shield up due to Spell Mastery. That's with Blade singer, or light armor proficiency from a feat. Meaning your DPR goes down to (2d6+1*0.05) 0.4.

You need to check your math. A wizard can get even higher AC than that, but it doesn't matter since a 20 always hits. Light crossbows do 1d8, not 1d6, so damage is 0.5 as I said. Shield can't be cast every round because 13th level wizards don't have spell mastery. (Not that it matters, when then incoming damage is 375 hp/rnd.)

The Wizard can simply fireball them en masse in a round. If not a true polymorph to Dragon or Pit Fiend fixes that.

Wrong. Fireball has a 20 foot radius. It gets 20/5 = 4 of the 750 troops (DMG p. 249). That only drops the incoming damage by 2 points, down to 373. True Polymorph is a 9th level spell, which a 13th level wizard can't cast.

[Malifice]

Simulacrum is 7th level and therefore doesn't cause wish to have a chance of failing or any negative side effects.

If youre using the simulacrum to attempt to chain wishes (or for other abuse) the DM is well within his rights to monkey paw you going by a liberal interpretation of the wish spell.

Even by the strictest most locked down reading you have about 3 Simulacra each 1/2 the level of the last, who you then tell to tell their created simulacra to obey you as if you were them.

The most recently created simulacrum hears you order the other simulacrum, and casts wish to free itself (and the other simulacrums) from any control from you, before your order can be relayed by the first simulacrum.

Roll initiative.

[NewDM]

So is "fighters are redundant and casters rule the roost." Need I continue from there?

Good thing no one actually said (or implied) that. Exaggerate much?

So Magic the Gathering, which goes through regular official ban/unban cycles, is a really horrible game by that logic. Many, many RPGs I've read encourage houseruling mid-session when a question comes up rather than stopping play to look for an official rule. It's not just a 5e or even just a D&D thing. That's an unreasonable standard, so much so that I'm surprised anything meets your refined tastes.

You aren't being granular enough. MtG has a different set of fans that are willing to throw down hundreds of dollars on a new set of cards when they come out, and the game is all about the mechanics. There is literally no role playing in it at all. So the rules are everything.

There is nothing wrong with making a call (which is not the same as house ruling) mid session because you don't want to look the rules up or the rules don't cover something. That is completely different than saying X class features no longer work (yes, spells are class features for casters).

I don't have "refined tastes". I have a limited amount of time and play D&D for the plot and story. I expect the rules to take care of themselves so I don't have to step in often and fix them. I had this with 4E. I didn't like some parts of 4E, but it did that well. I almost never had to make a ruling.

I just wish they'd have taken the better parts of 4E (like the balance) and put it into 5e.

So you want 4e. Don't say the same thing with different words, that's tautology.

Nope again. Please stop. At this point you are going in circles just to argue and post continously off topic. I like what 4e did, not 4e itself. I'd love any game that was balanced, easy to prep for, and allowed me to make whatever story I wanted.

4e had 4 classes with about 16 different flavours each; striker, controller, leader and defender. Again, which isn't saying it's bad, but more MMORPG-ish to 3.5's wildly simulationist bent.

And more trolling. In reality 4E had lots of different classes and each class did different things. The problem was most players couldn't digest the numbers, math, and powers enough to get past the mechanics. For instance in 5e you could say there are 2 classes. Melee classes and casters. If you removed all flavor text and looked purely at the math all classes break down into those two categories with various slight deviations.

I call shenanigans. If you're that experienced as a DM then you know that the issues you're bringing up do not exist unless the DM chooses to make them exist. You're twisting the rules in order to "prove" the game is broken, when in reality you're the one who broke it.

Call what you want. I related my experience. Personally I don't care what you believe. I know those issues existed and came up in every edition but 4th. I also knew that you could twist your game world and plot into pretzels to prevent them. I also know that the players weren't trying to break the game, most of the time they were using their features and spells as written with no idea the damage they were causing to the game.

Your experiences are not universal.

For instance I remember casters using polymorph and haste to cause system shock rolls that would instantly kill a target in order to shorten combats and reduce risk in 2e. They would also use high damage single target spells to do 'massive' damage in 2e and 3e in order to kill a high hit point creature in a single hit.

You need to check your math. A wizard can get even higher AC than that, but it doesn't matter since a 20 always hits. Light crossbows do 1d8, not 1d6, so damage is 0.5 as I said. Shield can't be cast every round because 13th level wizards don't have spell mastery. (Not that it matters, when then incoming damage is 375 hp/rnd.)

Yes, any character (or monster) in the game can be taken out by that tactic, so its not really saying much.

Wrong. Fireball has a 20 foot radius. It gets 20/5 = 4 of the 750 troops (DMG p. 249). That only drops the incoming damage by 2 points, down to 373. True Polymorph is a 9th level spell, which a 13th level wizard can't cast.

A 20 foot radius hits everything in 20 feet of a point centered between spaces. That's a maximum of 44 enemies if they are bunched up. Lets say it only catches half of that: 22 enemies.

If youre using the simulacrum to attempt to chain wishes (or for other abuse) the DM is well within his rights to monkey paw you going by a liberal interpretation of the wish spell.



The most recently created simulacrum hears you order the other simulacrum, and casts wish to free itself (and the other simulacrums) from any control from you, before your order can be relayed by the first simulacrum.

Roll initiative.

Sure if they decide to throw the rules out the window and house rule. The DM can do anything. However RAW they can't. Not only that many DMs won't, because they won't know its a problem until the caster makes a simulacrum of an Ancient Dragon because hey, they don't need spell components. You may want to go back and read the rules again.

[Arkhios]

TL;DR. My apologies.

To answer the OP for my part.
"How many houserules does 5E need?"
None, or as many as you feel appropriate for your campaign.

While you can play the game explicitly by the book, there are only so many styles you can actually play with the rules as-is. If or when I have an idea for a campaign that isn't covered by the rules already, then I prefer making adjustments or outright homebrewed rules. It's not that the edition itself would need any houserules, it's the campaign played that might need some. That's my opinion at least. And I'd do that for any system used, not just D&D, if necessary.

[Malifice]

Sure if they decide to throw the rules out the window and house rule. The DM can do anything. However RAW they can't.

Point me to the RAW that states they cant act in their own best interests in the absence of an order not to from the caster, and while youre at it point me to the RAW that states they cant interpret an order from the caster as they see fit?

[Coidzor]

Rogues could use a finesseable bludgeoning weapon, I suppose.

[Shaofoo]

Yes, to me this is worse than having to house rule, because I have to now have a world that is ruby free.

And this is bad why? There are a ton of games that have no rubies, plus if you want to be really creative there are tons of red gemstones that are not rubies.

Are rubies such an integral part of your character?

You were complaining about having to house rule (in various threads no less) and now I come up with a solution that while it is heavy handed and isn't my preferred go to (I would still ban the spell myself) it is within the rules of the game.

I am curious how would you solve the Simulacrum chain problem without house rules.

[Regitnui]

I am curious how would you solve the Simulacrum chain problem without house rules.

He wouldn't, clearly, since it's RAW.

[krugaan]

He wouldn't, clearly, since it's RAW.

If you can't make something work yourself, make enough noise and someone will fix it for you, like WotC or Crawford.

[mgshamster]

lol, the highest AC a Wizard can obtain is around 23 with every round Shield up due to Spell Mastery. That's with Blade singer, or light armor proficiency from a feat. Meaning your DPR goes down to (2d6+1*0.05) 0.4. The Wizard can simply fireball them en masse in a round. If not a true polymorph to Dragon or Pit Fiend fixes that.

How is the wizard casting fireball when he's already casting shield every round?

[Dimcair]

And the thread started so promising with a collection of house-rules of different DMs so that new DMs know/get a feeling for what too look out for....

[goto124]

"How many houserules does 5E need?"
None, or as many as you feel appropriate for your campaign.

And the thread started so promising with a collection of house-rules of different DMs so that new DMs know/get a feeling for what too look out for....

So... is there a list of house rules & rulings a new DM should probably make before starting a game?

[Shaofoo]

So... is there a list of house rules & rulings a new DM should probably make before starting a game?

I would say that as a new DM just play the game as is. If you really truly are scared then ban multiclassing and feats since those contain some problems as well (and isn't considered house ruling) but even then I don't think that it would be too bad (multiclassing delays your progression and feats don't come online till level 4, conversely you can enforce the normal Human so no one can get a feat at level 1 as well).

Most problems you see stem from people only making analysis at level 20 where if you truly are a new DM you would start at level 1, at most level 3 if you are experienced in other D&D systems (but probably level 1 anyway).

But really, just play the game as is at level 1. Then you will see if you get problems or not.

[JNAProductions]

I would say there should be three "House" rules.

1) Simulacrum is 9th level. (It's pretty dang powerful, and prevents Wish-chaining.)

2) Use RAI. (Stuff like Contagion and Creation, while RAW might let you do crazy things, have clear RAI.)

3) Just... Don't be a jerk. (Self-explanatory. Should solve 95% of all problems before they arise.)

[JoeJ]

A 20 foot radius hits everything in 20 feet of a point centered between spaces. That's a maximum of 44 enemies if they are bunched up. Lets say it only catches half of that: 22 enemies.

You're making up a house rule to increase the effectiveness of Fireball, and it still doesn't get enough of the mercenaries to matter. 750 - 22 = 728, with an average dpr of 364.

Sure if they decide to throw the rules out the window and house rule. The DM can do anything. However RAW they can't. Not only that many DMs won't, because they won't know its a problem until the caster makes a simulacrum of an Ancient Dragon because hey, they don't need spell components. You may want to go back and read the rules again.

You should take your own advice. If you don't want a PC to create a simulacrum of a dragon, don't implement the house rule that says they can. RAW you can only make a simulacrum of a humanoid or a beast.

[Estrillian]

4E is done. Please can we stop the trolling and memes. You gain nothing from it now.

In 4E you gained a utility spell that you could choose a social or exploration ability every 3 levels or so. In addition to that, you also had hundreds of ritual spells that took from 1 minute to 1 day to cast and did all of the out of combat stuff that previous editions required from spell slots. Then there were magic items that allowed you to cast rituals with a standard action.

Please just stop.

Wow ... you took that in a way I didn't mean. Although I didn't play 4E I am quite an admirer of its design philosophies and would love to see a few more of them in 5E (e.g. in monster design). What I meant was that 4E had very clearly defined powers, quite unlike the more freeform spell descriptions that you might see in 1E or 2E. A power in 4E is only loosely defined in terms of its narrative effect (in fact people love that about 4E, that they can re-skin powers freely) but tightly in its mechanical one, to the extent that without careful skinning a power could just look like a collection of rule-effect with a name slapped on. 5E seems to keep that principle, where the important thing to the designers seems to be the damage numbers and the other rule-effects, rather than what actually happens in the game world.

Your point about 4E's utility/ritual powers is quite correct, but not at all what I was talking about. If 5E had the same flexible system of out of combat powers as 4E did then there wouldn't be an imbalance - instead we must imagine that 90% of wizards are adventurers because they don't seem to make a lot of spells to do their housework, or walk their pets, or shift cargo around, or redecorate their living rooms.

[charcoalninja]

750 men turning in an instant to engage a single target with concentrated fire is such a miraculous feat of command logistics that holding it up as a viable Simulacrum emulator is flat out ridiculous.

Even IF the army somehow could bring it's entire force to bear against a single target they'll be attacking the Wizard with disadvantage because the army will be engaged at night, or in fog, or the Wizard is strolling around with greater invisibility. And since they'll be at disadvantage, next to 0 attacks will hit since the mechanic alone all but negates rolling 20s. Our wizard is now free to pick them off at his leisure.

Heaven forbid if your Wizard actually took lucky in which case he's all but immune to the mundane force.

5E threads love to miraculously empower armies to perfectly engage a man sized target with its full offensive power at long range in the dark. It's just silly.

This thread asked what house rules does 5E need and I maintain that it needs the standard non 4E high level magic tweaks to keep things fair. Especially since 5E has an incredibly sparse system of combat for the non casters (particularly bad if you don't use feats) compared to 3.5, 4E or Pathfinder these days.

[JNAProductions]

750 men turning in an instant to engage a single target with concentrated fire is such a miraculous feat of command logistics that holding it up as a viable Simulacrum emulator is flat out ridiculous.

Even IF the army somehow could bring it's entire force to bear against a single target they'll be attacking the Wizard with disadvantage because the army will be engaged at night, or in fog, or the Wizard is strolling around with greater invisibility. And since they'll be at disadvantage, next to 0 attacks will hit since the mechanic alone all but negates rolling 20s. Our wizard is now free to pick them off at his leisure.

Heaven forbid if your Wizard actually took lucky in which case he's all but immune to the mundane force.

5E threads love to miraculously empower armies to perfectly engage a man sized target with its full offensive power at long range in the dark. It's just silly.

This thread asked what house rules does 5E need and I maintain that it needs the standard non 4E high level magic tweaks to keep things fair. Especially since 5E has an incredibly sparse system of combat for the non casters (particularly bad if you don't use fears) compared to 3.5, 4E or Pathfinder these days.

Go post this in the Dragonslaying thread, why don'tcha? :P

[Nu]

Chances are, when you play 5th edition, a DM will need to make a fair number of "rulings", as in, the DM will need to interpret the somewhat vague language occasionally used in spell descriptions and other rules text. Whether or not this constitutes "house rules" is up to you. Personally, I prefer a more clearly defined rule set (would it have killed WotC to add a "Target:" line to spell descriptions?), but it is what it is, and I enjoy it well enough.

[Estrillian]

Except that's not what the post said. The post said there weren't any out of combat spells, which is flat out factually wrong. Its a meme.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have posted a reply after being in a car-crash, I clearly was still a little fuzzy. But seriously, that's a meme? Not one I've ever seen. And it wasn't in the part of the post that mentioned 4E either.

What I said was that my personal impression of the 5E spell list was that, like the class abilities, it was heavily weighted towards combat, whereas a fair reading of the "3 pillars" text would suggest you'd expect it to only be 1/3 combat related. I'm appreciative to the actual count done up-thread for showing that the balance is not as bad as I thought (though something like Fire bolt is only barely non-combat), but it is still nothing like 1/3 for each pillar.

I suppose that comes down to what you are trying to simulate. Not having the floor washing spells is fair enough if you aren't ever going to attempt "wizard school where the characters are not adventurers" sort of game.

[charcoalninja]

Go post this in the Dragonslaying thread, why don'tcha? :P

Lol, I'll go take a look!

[Shaofoo]

750 men turning in an instant to engage a single target with concentrated fire is such a miraculous feat of command logistics that holding it up as a viable Simulacrum emulator is flat out ridiculous.

Even IF the army somehow could bring it's entire force to bear against a single target they'll be attacking the Wizard with disadvantage because the army will be engaged at night, or in fog, or the Wizard is strolling around with greater invisibility. And since they'll be at disadvantage, next to 0 attacks will hit since the mechanic alone all but negates rolling 20s. Our wizard is now free to pick them off at his leisure.

Heaven forbid if your Wizard actually took lucky in which case he's all but immune to the mundane force.

5E threads love to miraculously empower armies to perfectly engage a man sized target with its full offensive power at long range in the dark. It's just silly.

This thread asked what house rules does 5E need and I maintain that it needs the standard non 4E high level magic tweaks to keep things fair. Especially since 5E has an incredibly sparse system of combat for the non casters (particularly bad if you don't use fears) compared to 3.5, 4E or Pathfinder these days.

I am not sure your analysis. Your first analysis is that the wizard will be able to dictate the battlefield as he wishes (which comes in the usual white board situations where "Wizard comes up to the Fighter while he sleeps") or with greater Invisibility (which means no other concentration spells). And I am not sure how does disadvantage or lucky make you suddenly immune to mundane force (Lucky gives you three rolls to deal with, and you must use Lucky before the roll is actually done so no auto choosing that 20. And while disadvantage is big I don't see how it makes you immune, especially when Wizards don't really have that high of an AC anyway unless you are a Bladesinger).

A single high level wizard could take on a huge army by its own but it isn't a sure thing. Of course you could change several of the archers into spell casting hirelings and have them cast faerie fire so to negate your invisibility. But then it is just a big arms race.

Basically a wizard can kill an army on his own and the army can kill the wizard, it all depends on so many factors that can change that any concrete answer is meaningless.

[JoeJ]

750 men turning in an instant to engage a single target with concentrated fire is such a miraculous feat of command logistics that holding it up as a viable Simulacrum emulator is flat out ridiculous.

750 archers all firing at the only target is nor remotely miraculous.

Even IF the army somehow could bring it's entire force to bear against a single target they'll be attacking the Wizard with disadvantage because the army will be engaged at night, or in fog, or the Wizard is strolling around with greater invisibility. And since they'll be at disadvantage, next to 0 attacks will hit since the mechanic alone all but negates rolling 20s. Our wizard is now free to pick them off at his leisure.

Heaven forbid if your Wizard actually took lucky in which case he's all but immune to the mundane force.

5E threads love to miraculously empower armies to perfectly engage a man sized target with its full offensive power at long range in the dark. It's just silly.

That's an awful long way to shift those goalposts. The fact that 750 troops can't beat the wizard in every imaginable circumstance in no why shows that a simulacrum of a 13th level wizard invalidates the other PCs in a party, which was your initial claim.

[Temperjoke]

What I love is that every claim that I've seen about 5e being broken keeps coming back to the Simulacrum and Wish combination chain.

[Grod_The_Giant]

As long as some DMs will interpret the game that way (and most new DMs will [pun intended]), then its a valid reading of the rules. The rules aren't interpreted by one individual alone for everyone (Jeremy Crawford excepted). They are interpreted at each table by individual DMs and therefore if any DM allows it, its RAW.

1. RAW is nothing but what the rules state. Nothing more, nothing less. No interpretations, no ambiguities, no "it doesn't say I can't." If it's not in black and white, it's not RAW.
2. Preeeeety sure that most DMs apply elements of sanity to their rulings. As in "no, you cannot use a 5th level spell to do things not even Wish can do." As was pointed out before, if a rule can be interpreted multiple ways, let's generally choose to look at it in the most balanced and sensible way.

{scrubbed}. Wall of Force and Cloudkill are both Concentration. Animate Dead and Create Undead create X undead per casting, and control the same number- effects which cannot happen in the same casting. Rope Trick lasts one hour, not eight or more. And so on. Iconic spells from past editions are still there, but they're generally quite weakened.

5e certainly does have caster inequality, but it's nowhere near the dominance level of 3.5. More of a "I have way more options than you" thing than a "I'm flat out more powerful than you" issue, which in my opinion is an acceptable outcome. It has its own unique flaws, which I've certainly spoken out about plenty a time, but in most ways that matter it IS the simpler, more balanced 3.5 that we've been dreaming of for years.

[2D8HP]

Against the highest AC a wizard can attain, a single guard with a light crossbow does an average of 0.5 hp per round. For 1,500 gp you can hire 750 such troops, with a total average dpr of 375.

But how many guards to take out an Ancient Red Dragon?
And how many 20th level Wizards?
I want ratios people!
Please discuss.
(Posted in both 5e houserules and Dragonslaying threads).

[Shaofoo]

But how many guards to take out an Ancient Red Dragon?
And how many 20th level Wizards?
I want ratios people!
Please discuss.
(Posted in both 5e houserules and Dragonslaying threads).

The problem is that there are so many variables that it is meaningless.

What is the actual dimensions of the arena and can the dragon fly in it? What is actually in the arena? What are the actual stats of the guards and Wizards.

Like I said there are so many variables to consider that any answer is not an actual accurate representation of the game as a whole. It works as a mental exercise but not as a metric to measure for game imbalances.

[goto124]

3) Just... Don't be a jerk. (Self-explanatory. Should solve 95% of all problems before they arise.)

Isn't that Rule 0?