Homebrew & House Rules

In general campaigns in Arceiron follow the standard Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rules, but there are some changes, additions and variations that you can read about here.
This section might also contain clarifications and specific rulings about certain official rules and their interpretation.
The general rules for character creation, can be found under Character Creation.

Table of Contents

• Complex Rules Systems
• General Homebrew & House Rules
• Rolling and Dice Rules
• Skill Check Rules
• Resting
• Combat Rules
• Spellcasting
• Using Items

Complex Rules Systems

This articles describes all miscellaneous rules additions and changes, that don't merit a dedicated article. For the more complex rules variations see the following articles:

• Character Creation
• Character Aspects
• Alignment
• Factions
• Inspiration

• Languages
• Equipment Rules
• Downtime
• Travel Rules
• The Fates

General Homebrew & House Rules

Rolling and Dice Rules

Success / Failure

Most rolls of a d20 can crit / fail, not just attack rolls. (RAW only attack rolls can crit succeed / crit fail, not ability checks or saving throws).
That being said, if a challenge is specified as "impossible for your character" by the DM, you are not entitled to do a roll "to see if you get a nat. 20". Impossible means impossible.

Advantage / Disadvantage

Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out 1:1, so if you have 2x Advantage and 1x Disadvantage you still get advantage and vice versa.

Skill Check Rules

Skill Challenges

When your group is trying to overcome a difficult obstacle, your DM might call for a Skill Challenge. Skill Challenges try to simulate an action scene or similar scenarios, which aren't covered by the standard rules, like a chase scene or fleeing from a collapsing dungeon.
A Skill Challenge consists of the whole group making different skill checks, trying to achieve a goal, when the risk of failure is imminent. To do so, every player can use his action to do a skill check, that can be used to further their progress towards that goal.

Rules for Skill Challenges:

• The Skill Challenge is successful once the group has accumulated X (as determined by the DM at the start of the challenge, usually 3-5) amount of successes
• The Skill Challenge has failed once the group accumulated Y (as determined by the DM at the start of the challenge, usually 3) failures
• Each individual success / failure can have an impact on the scene
• A character can only make checks for skills he/she is proficient in
• A character can only try a skill check once for the same skill

To do a skill check a player can theoretically use any skill, that they can explain to the DM why it would gain them a benefit / further their goal. If the DM approves of this, the skill may be rolled for the skill challenge.
The DM might also give some examples of skills that are guaranteed to gain successes for the challenge if the skill check is successful, even though players should not feel limited to these skills.

New Skills

A few new skills have been introduced to the game. All classes may choose these skills with their starting class skill proficiencies, but they might also be gained through some other sources.

Linguistic

Your Intelligence (Linguistic) check covers your attempts to decipher linguistic meaning in a language you don’t understand. The DM might call for an Intelligence (Linguistic) check when trying to determine what an ancient piece of text means that you might be familiar with, but in a language you don’t speak, or when you attempt to communicate with a creature than doesn’t share a language with you. An Intelligence (Linguistic) check could also be used to make a detailed translation of a large text between two languages you know or to look for details hidden in a contract.
Passive Linguistic Skill. Your Passive Linguistic is the capacity to understand linguistic detail without a roll. Places where Passive Language might come into play include whether or not a character recognizes if symbols contain linguistic meaning or to recognize what script is being used by a particular text.

Resting

A long rest requires at least 6 hours of sleeping in a safe place designated by your DM, typically an inn or secure homestead.
Camping in the wilderness, in a dungeon, or similar locations, is not sufficient for gaining the benefits of a long rest.

Combat Rules

Encounters

Encounters with a large amount of weaker "minion" type enemies will use the rules detailed in the Minions article.

Conditions

Campaigns in Arceiron feature a number of additional conditions, detailed below:

Bleeding

Bleeding creatures cannot regain hit points from spells or abilities. A bleeding creature can only regain hit points by consuming hit dice or completing a long rest.

Bloodied

A creature that drops below 50% hit points, automatically becomes bloodied. The bloodied condition by itself has no effect, but may interact with various other effects.

Dazed

While Dazed, you experience the following effects:

• Limited Activity. You can Move or take one action on your turn, not both. You also can’t take a Bonus Action or a Reaction.
• Unconcentrated. If you are concentrating on a spell and become dazed, you lose concentration on that spell and it immediately fails. While dazed, you cannot concentrate on spells.

Exhausted

Attention: This Condition is from the D&D One Playtest Material and might be subject to change.

While you are subjected to the Exhausted Condition (known in older books as Exhaustion), you experience the following effects:

• Levels of Exhaustion. This Condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 level of exhaustion. You die if your exhaustion level exceeds 10.
• d20 Rolls Affected. When you make an Ability Check, Attack Roll or Saving Throw, you subtract your exhaustion level from the d20 roll. Death Saving Throws are not affected by this modifier.
• Spell Save DCs Affected. Subtract your exhaustion level from the Spell save DC of any Spell you cast.
• Ending the Condition. Finishing a Long Rest removes up 1 of your levels of exhaustion. When your exhaustion level reaches 0, you are no longer Exhausted.

Damage Types

Bleed Damage

Bleed damage is its own damage type. It's generally extra damage applied to a weapon attack by another effect or ability, but it can be inflicted in other ways.

• A creature that does not have blood or that does not need blood to function, is immune to bleed damage.
• If you have resistance and/or damage reduction to all three types of Physical Damage (Bludgeoning, Slashing, Piercing), non-magical or otherwise, that reduction then also applies to bleed damage.

Physical Damage

Physical Damage is a category that specifically includes the bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage types. If an effect refers to physical damage in some way, then it means all three of these damage types. It often also includes bleed damage, but this is up to the DM, depending on the effect at hand.

Damage Reduction

Though damage reduction already exists in a small capacity in 5e, the mechanic is much more prevalent in Arceiron. Damage reduction is similar in function to resistance, in that it reduces damage received by a static amount based on a number associated with the damage reduction effect. Damage reduction is always applied before resistances unless stated otherwise. Damage reduction may be referred to by its shorthand of "DR".
There are 3 main categories of damage reduction:

• General Damage Reduction: When a feature only lists +X Damage Reduction, but not additional affixes, the damage reduction is applied to any source of damage.
• Limited Damage Reduction:
  • Physical Damage Reduction: When a feature lists +X Physical Damage Reduction, it reduces the damage taken by Bludegeonung, Piercing, Slashing and Bleed damage from non-magical attacks.
  • Magical Damage Rediuction: When a feature lists +X Magical Damage Reduction, it reduces all damage taken by magical sources, but not Bludegeonung, Piercing, Slashing or Bleed damage.
• Specific Damage Reduction: When a feature lists Damage Reduction against a specific type of damage, it applies to all sources of that damage type, both physical and magical.

A combination of limited and specific damage reduction is possible to e.g. only give "+5 Physical Fire reduction". This would reduce all Fire damage, but not from magical fire, like from spells.

Spellcasting

Components

Diamonds

Diamonds and diamond dust are an incredibly rare resource to adventurers in Arceiron (see Buying & Selling Items), and as a result, many spells become incredibly difficult to cast. This is intentional for spells that provide resurrection, or some other form of life preservation. However, some spells have been altered to allow them to be easier to cast, so as not to encounter this diamond scarcity. In these following spells, the diamond material component has simply been replaced with any gem of equal value:

• Chromatic Orb
• Gate
• Mighty Fortress
• Glyph of Warding
• Nondetection
• Stoneskin
• Symbol

Furthermore, the Reincarnate spell now requires an equivalent amount of diamond dust instead of its usual rare oils as a material component.

Spells

Limited Spell Learning

The following spells can't be chosen as part of the new spells you learn from gaining levels in a spellcasting class or from similar feat. They are incredibly rare among mortals in the world of Arceiron and can only be taught to you by someone who has either mastered the spell to great degree or by otherworldly beings of great power:

• True Resurrection
• Wish

Conjured Creatures

For balancing reasons, some creatures, conjured or summoned by a spell, might have their own spellcasting abilities limited. For example, Pixies summoned by the spell "Conjure Woodland Beings" are unable to cast their polymorph spell.

Gate Spell

The following clarifications apply to the Gate spell:

• To summon a creature of the level of Gods and Other Deities, you need to know the creature's Truename to target it with this spell. In addition to this, summoning a creature of Lesser Deity rank or higher (e.g. a God), always only summons a mortal avatar of the deity.
• Summoning a creature, that is not normally able to freely enter the destination plane or that is barred from leaving its original plane by divine magic, is possible, but only summons the creature for the duration of the spell and inevitably sends it back to its original plane afterwards.

Plane Shift Spell

The following alterations have been made to the Plane Shift spell:

• If the destination plane of this spell has multiple dimensional layers (like the nine realms of The Nine Hells), a rod usually is attuned to only one of these layers and the spell can only shift a user to this specific layer (like the 2nd layer of The Nine Hells, Dis). There exist more powerful rods that can connect to an entire plane of existence and all of its encompassing layers, but these rods are incredibly rare and hard to create.

The following clarifications apply to the Plane Shift spell:

• The attuned, forked metal rods, required by the Plane Shift spell, are very rare in the mortal world and usually can't be acquired from magical shops or similar providers of components. Most of these objects are stashed away by powerful spellcasters or located in great temples or secret cultist lairs.
• This spell does not allow the creation of attuned rods itself, it just requires them to be cast.

Using Items

Attunement

In Arceiron, each character starts with 0 attunement slots by default, but it is possible to earn more than the traditional 3 attunement slots in basic 5e. Attunement slots can be awarded for completing prestige missions, campaigns, special RP events, or by reaching certain character levels; you automatically gain an additional attunement slot at the levels listed below.

Character Level	Attunement Slots*
1	0
3	1
5	2
11	3
18	4

*Attunement Slots listed here only account for Slots automatically gained through levels and do not include additonal Slots from other sources

A character can only attune to a magic item, if they know it is magical in the first place. Attuning to a magic item, does not reveal its magical properties beyond basic things, such as bonuses to attack and damage rolls, armor class or added damage types.
Attuning to a magic item now takes a long rest instead of a short rest. During a single long rest a character can both unattune from 1 magic item and attune to 1 magic item.

Activating an Item - Consumables

• Using a consumable item (potion, poison) yourself can be done as a Bonus Action, while administering a potion to another character, requires the Use an Object action.
• Handing off an item to another character can be done through your Free Object Interaction during your turn, but accepting a handoff, requires a reaction. The same is true with switched Actions, when done during the accepting character's turn.
• Typically when scrolls are used, they are spell scrolls and are used to cast a spell. Casting a spell from a spell scroll takes a Cast a Spell action and not a Use an Object action. However scrolls that are not spell scrolls may also be encountered. These scrolls often state what is required to use them. Unless otherwise stated, these scrolls take a Use an Object action.

Weight

Campaigns in Arceiron use the variant Encumbrance rules from the Player's Handbook.

• 50 coins, regardless of type, weigh 1 lb, so the total weight of carried coinage is [Your total coin amount] divided by 50.
• Potions and poisons weigh 1 lbs each.
• Scrolls weigh 0.5 lb each.