House Rules

The following is a living document, which can be updated and changed over the course of a campaign. It contains the house rules that I want to play with, and have come to an agreement with my players about.

Flanking:

There are many ways of getting advantage in the game: Guiding Bolt, Reckless Attack, Attacking from Hidden, The target being Prone et.c. Flanking is cool: it makes PC’s and enemies move around the battlefield much more, and think much more about strategic positioning. However, giving advantage is very powerful, and it also makes many of the other options for advantage redundant. Furthermore, players often end up fighting for that one hex (or square) that grants advantage on a medium creature, and the others get no bonus, even though they are attacking the same creature.
So the houserule is:

Harrying & Flanking

Any creature who shares base-to-base contact on an enemy with at least one ally is considered harrying. When harrying you get +1 to hit to all melee attack rolls on the harried enemy.

Any creature standing directly opposite of an ally when surrounding an enemy creature is considered flanking instead of harrying. When flanking you get +2 to hit to all melee attack rolls on the flanked enemy. Note there are two hexes directly opposite a large enemy for medium creatures, and three hexes for huge creatures and so forth.

This should ensure that players and DM’s still attempt to flank, but the benefit is no longer too powerful, nor does it interfere with other skills that grant advantage, such as reckless attack, or attacking from hidden. And players and monsters will now be less inclined to go out of their way to end up opposite their enemy, because they still get +1 if they can’t quite get the full flank.

Major Advantage and disadvantage:

It is very rare that you get three instances of advantage or disadvantage on anything, but it happens, and when it does, it feels a little underwhelming that it has no further consequences. In the rare case where a creature has been hit with a guiding bolt, they are prone, and you are attacking it from hidden, you should get to roll three dice and pick the highest. This makes it VERY unlikely to miss with an attack and increases the odds of a natural twenty from 9.75% on normal advantage, to 14.25%.
So the house rule is:

Major Advantage & Disadvantage

When you are granted advantage on a roll from three different effects, you gain major advantage, which allows you to roll 3d20 and choose the highest. The same applies if you get disadvantage from three different effects. Note that getting advantage or disadvantage from two effects makes no difference.

Moving through enemies:

I’m pretty sure you are not allowed to move through the space of an enemy, but if you are, then I think it should be a house rule that you cannot (unless you have a special rule like small folk nimbleness). However, if an enemy is blocking your way, there should be tactical options for passing them, so I think that if you can apply certain status effects to them, then it should become possible to pass by them.
So the house rule is:

Moving through enemy spaces

You cannot normally pass through the space of an enemy, unless you have a special rule that allows it. However, if the enemy is prone, grappled, stunned, incapacitated or petrified, or if, at the dm’s discretion, they are somehow restricted in their movement, or unwilling to block their enemy’s way, then you may move through their space using double movement, as if it were difficult terrain. If the enemy is charmed and treating you as an ally, even if it is only for a short time, you may of course move through their space as though they were an ally (because in that moment they are).

Crit Hits:

Rolling twice as many dice is fun, but does bear the danger of rolling really low, thus undermining the benefit (and the excitement) of a critical hit. There is nothing worse than critting with a longsword, rolling two d10 and then rolling a 1 and a 2… So in order to ensure that a critical hit always does a lot of damage, this house rule suggests that the weapon's or spell's own dice is instead maximized. That is, a hit with a mace is normally d6+ST, and a crit is 2d6+ST. With this rule the extra die allowed by the crit is an automatic 6, so you still roll d6+ST and then add 6 more as though the extra die allowed had roled the highest possible. With a greatsword that would be 2d6+ST normally, 4d6+ST on a crit, and 2d6+ST+12 under this rule.

Any extra dice, from sneak attack or hex or what have you, is doubled as normal, and not maximized. Only the base dice, from the weapon or the spell is maximized, while any extra dice are still doubled, to give that big splashy roll (and to not automatically give 18 extra damage on a sneak attack from a level 5 rogue). Also, if a magical weapon deals extra damage with dice, those dice aren’t maximized either, so a mace that deals an extra d4 fire damage deals 6 + d6+ST bludgening damage + 2d4 fire damage.
So the house rule is:

Critical Hits

When you cause damage with a critical hit from an attack or a spell, you maximize the damage the weapon or spell would do on its dice, and then roll damage as normal on top of that. Any other dice you roll for damage, such as sneak attack, hex, or added damage from a magical weapon, you get to roll twice, but you do not maximize them. Only the base weapon or spell dice are maximized.

Fate Tokens:

There are a variety of ways a DM can reward the players for inventive roleplay. While this can be fun, it can also seem kind of arbitrary who gets rewarded and who gets overlooked. If, however, the rewards are made explicit and the way to aquire them transparent, it might be easier to give out consistent rewards. Futhermore, inspired by the fate points from the original Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, I think it is fun to give the players a chance to avoid one shit moment, like an extra life in classic arcade games, but it should be rare, and expensive for all players.
So the house rule is:

Fate Tokens

At certain times, the DM may award a player fate-tokens. When awarded a token, the player rolls a d20 and writes the result on the token. A player may only have seven fate-tokens at one time, but players may freely gift tokens among each other at any time, including as they are granted to them. At any time during the campaign the player may return one or more tokens to the DM for the following benefits:

• After making a d20 roll, except a death-save, you may pay a fate token to reroll the d20. You must accept the new result.


• Before making a d20 roll you may instead pay two fate tokens to forego the roll and instead make the result that of one of the tokens payed.


• If all present players contribute 3 fate tokens each, then they may change fate for a single occurence in the game. This will most commonly be the death of a player character, but if they can come to an agreement with the DM it can be other occurences too. The canonical example would be, if a villain makes an attack on an unconscious character which results in their death and the DM narrates it as the villain stabbing their spear through the character's heart killing them, when fate is altered, the villain unknowingly misses their heart by a few inches, and they believe them to be dead, but they are instead unconscious and stable. If, instead, the villain is a dragon, and it was narrated that they swallowed the character, they instead spit them out, again, thinking them dead. Only the one occurence is changed, and the character may still die moments later, but if there are other villains present they too believe the character to be dead. If the character falls down a deep ravine, they instead land unconscious on a small ledge. In short, they avoid the consequences of one specific occurence and its immediate fallout, but after that, they are on their own.

Dying, Death, and resurrection:

The implications of resurrection in the lore of a world are enormous. A beloved king (or any king really) would be continually resurrected by any cleric with 500 gold and a 5th level spell slot. In Sildair, the rich and powerful do indeed get healed, and occasionally resurrected, which makes it more common for nobles to live past 100 years. But the highest level resurrection spells are clearly created to give players the option of returning a beloved player character, and not with any narrative justification in mind.

I feel this cheapens the danger of death a little, but furthermore, if the players or the DM would like for a specific player character or NPC to return to life against all logic and laws of nature, of course it is possible to make that part of the story. I just think that it shouldn't have a spell attached to it, but rather be something like a once-in-a-millenium kind of legendary achievement that becomes the focus of a campaign, and not just a spell to choose when you get to a certain level. So the spells Reincarnate, Resurrection and True Resurrection are banned from the normal spell lists.

Finally, falling unconscious during combat, or dying for a moment before being revivified, should be an ordeal, and therefore it should result in exhaustion. Most games I play are such that players can stop and rest fairly easily if they want to. They are rarely trapped deep in a multi-level dungeon, and even if they are, they may still be able to sleep. On the rare occasion that a long rest is a real liability for them, like when there is a ticking clock in the plot of the campaign, well that's when a bit of exhaustion just raises the stakes, and makes things more interesting.
So the house rule is:

Falling Unconscious and Dying

Whenever you fall unconscious, you immediately gain one point of exhaustion which you retain until you have finished a long rest, following the normal rules for exhaustion. If you die, and are brought back with the revivify spell or something similar, you awake with two points of exhaustion.

Banned or modified spells:

In order for the world of Sildair to be internally consistent, and in order to keep up the "rare magic" fantasy world that I prefer to DM, many of the spells available in D&D have to be either banned or modified. It is clear that many of the spells invented for D&D are there to spur on player creativity: there are many spells that can do marvelous and strange things that can affect a roleplaying story in many ways, and I don't wish to limit that creativity, but the style of magic in Dungeons & Dragons is a lot more "cartoonish" than the one I imagine for Sildair, so many spells need to be reimagined, to fit into Sildair. It is worth noting that ideally, this means that 80% of spells just need to be "reskinned" or "reflavoured", working mechanically just the same, but being described differently, 15% need to be a little modified, and only 5% needs to be outright banned.

An example of how spells may need adjusting is summoning spells. The way Deva work in Sildair is, in order to manifest in the material world, they need a body, made from material stuff. Demons prefer to possess living creatures, elementals form out of their element, and celestials prefer to manifest through immaculate conception. Fey don't care much one way or the other, but they need some medium to appear. Therefore, all summoning spells need some kind of explanation for how the summoned creature creates its body.

Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians and similar spells can shape directly from the Aether, but a spell like Find Familiar needs a little more justification. Find Familiar is a low level spell that can be cast as a ritual, and as a DM I don't want to make it a challenge to cast a spell that the game gives you the option to cast for free whenever you have 10 minutes and ten gold. Instead, I want to make it more fun and more flavourful to come up with how you summon your familiar. If it is a demon, you'll need a live animal of the type they are, for the demon to possess. If it is fey, you may need an enchanted skull or skeleton of the animal and a vial of blood, or perhaps a freshly picket bouquet of flowers. Regardless, it means you can't summon a new type of animal every time without putting a bit of planning into it ahead of time. Your familiar can't just be a raven one moment and a toad the next, without you making a plan for it. If you are willing to think creatively and plan ahead, then expect me, as your DM, to do my very best to accomodate your wishes.

Similarly, if you cast Summon Elemental then you need the element in question. Easy enough with air, but you'd need a body of water big enough to form a medium sized creature, a puddle won't do. Same with flame. You still need the 4000v component, but it will be flavoured differently: maybe a piece of aetherstone jewelry holding the spirit of an elemental. A spell like Summon Greater Demon needs a living humanoid to possess, not just a vial of blood from a recently dead humanoid, making the spell a lot harder to set up, but it doesn't fit into Sildair otherwise, and it is an opportunity for great story-telling, hopefully inspiring more creativity, not less. Check with the DM if you are not sure about how a spell will be implemented.

There are no alternate planes in Sildair, and it is not possible to teleport long distances. The first part is for the sake of lore, and will only interfere with spells that cannot be reflavoured to explain their function in a way that doesn't involve other planes. The second part is for the sake of gameplay, because, as mentioned in the introduction, the logistics of travel is a big part of my games, so the spells Teleportation Circle, Transport via Plants, Word of Recall, Teleport, Plane Shift, Gate are banned in games taking place in Sildair. Spells like Misty Step and Dimension Door are still allowed, but rather than teleporting in the strictest sense, it can instead be described as dissolving into the aether and moving very fast as a sort of mist, perhaps looking similar to Nightcrawler from X-men.