This is a colledction of the rules variations and additions used in my campaign. I am using these to impart a lower fantasy feel without impacting the core 5th edition rules to heavily, through longer healing times, persistent wounds, and a few other rules that suit my style of play as a GM These have either been sourced directly from other sites on the web (links provided where possible), or taken and tweaked by myself. This page summarises the major rules changes with the full details being found on following pages.
Races and Class variants
All
races have been altered or homebrewed directly with the aim of balancing them to the same relative level of power. I used the
Detect Balance document by Eleazzar, with each race being aimed at around 27 or 28 points for overall balance.
Class ability scores & racial saves
Races no longer impart a large (commonly a +2) ability score to a character's overall ability scores, instead they now provide a proficiency in either Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom saving throws. Similarly a character's class now only provides one saving throw proficiency in either Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma and now instead provides a +2 ability score bonus in the ability score most relevant to the class.
Combat
Armour now provides Damage Reduction based on its category (light, medium or heavy), and allows the GM to further add damage reduction as a property to magical version of these.
Weapons in general have had an overhaul (based on
this guide by Ed Del Castillo), with a few further changes from me. Overall these changes are intended to provided meaningful choices to the players about their character's fight with rather than always ending up with the weapon with the biggest damage die.
Other combat rules included bigger criticals, slower healing and hit die recovery, and lasting wounds.
