House Rules

These house rules are designed to streamline play and are built assuming the WOTC published 2014 Player’s Handbook. These house rules are specifically designed to streamline character creation, gameplay, and to support the other players and the GM at the table.

Multiclassing¶

In general there is no multiclassing allowed. There may be specific story/plot based considerations where I will allow (or even encourage) it, but otherwise your class is your class.

Luck¶

Every PC has a special resource called Luck. Use Luck to influence the result of any ability check, attack roll, or save you make. Here’s an example:

A player can spend a luck point whenever he or she makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw. The player can spend the luck point after the roll is made but before any of its results are applied. Spend Luck points on a 1-for-1 bonus to add to any d20 roll you make. For example, if you have 4 Luck points, and roll a 13 on the die, you could spend 2 Luck points and make your result a 15. You then have 2 Luck points left to use later. You can’t use Luck points to offset the effects of rolling a natural 1 or create the effects of a natural 20. No one is that lucky.

Alternatively, immediately after you make an ability check, attack roll, or save, you can spend 3 Luck points to reroll a single d20 used for that roll.

Luck points also have other uses. A player can spend 1 luck point to stabilize their character during death saving-throws. Once a character is stabilized the player may spend 2 luck points to bring their character to 1 hp.

You can convert luck points to hit-dice on a 1-1 basis.

Luck may also be used to shorten the time of a short rest. Each point spent halves the time of the short rest (e.g. 1 pt = 30 min, 2 pts = 15), but no rest may be shorter than 10 min.

A character starts with 5 luck points at 1st level. Each time the character gains a level, they lose any unspent luck points and gain a new total equal to 5 + 1/2 the character’s level (rounded down, minimum of 1).

Luck points may also be awarded under special circumstances, such as:

• The GM can award 1 Luck point to a character as a reward for coming up with a clever idea, excellent roleplaying, or trying something interesting but not optimal.
• The GM can award Luck points to a party for surviving difficult encounters or achieving story goals (in addition to XP).

Resting¶

We’re going to use slightly more “gritty” rules for resting. Short rests are (still) an hour, and may be taken in any moderately secure place. But long rests can only have their full effect if you are in a “safe” area, such as a house, town, inn, or other fortified and secure place. You cannot (at least typically) take a long rest in a dungeon or in the wilderness.

In insecure places you may still rest for 8 hours. But all recovery of resources is halved. So only half your spell slots, or daily abilities, or 1/4 of our hit dice, etc., are regained. You also do not regain full health and you do not recover from exhaustion.

Exhaustion¶

Instead of the standard degrees of exhaustion, exhaustion imposes a cumulative -1 penalty on all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks to the exhausted creature. A creature dies if it reaches -6.

Big Bads¶

Some monsters in our games are just more powerful than others. These “big bad boss” monsters often have Legendary Resistance even if they’re not full legendary monsters.

Further, bosses can use Legendary Resistance to break other debilitating effects. For example, armored bosses can rip off their armor to avoid heat metal. A death knight can tear open a force cage. A dragon’s breath can sometimes break through resistances and immunities. Bosses likely cannot be charmed, suggested, or otherwise easily mentally manipulated.

Save your Save or Suck Abilities for the boss’s minions.