I’ve been playing 5th Edition D & D now for several years. I think I’ve finally adjusted to the system. I wrote four posts prior in which I examined some of the things I like about the system, some of the things I don’t like about the system, and a few things that I’m still up in the air about. In light of all that, I’m going to now discuss a few candidates for potential “house rules.” Of course, I haven’t DMed in 5th edition yet, so I’m not quite sure if these rules will pass the bar or not. But I feel like voicing them nonetheless.
Enhanced Magic Resistance
I mentioned previously that I did not like how the new Magic Resistance works. It, basically, just gives creatures with magic resistance a greater likelihood of making their saving throw. I guess that’s fine to an extent – in the end the dice rolling is all about doing damage and not doing damage – but I think I had a thought to throw in here.
Obviously, when it comes to special effects – like for hold or whatever spells – a successful save neutralizes the spell. But my understanding is that for damage, magic resistance simply means a greater chance of making the saving throw and having the damage halved (I may have that wrong-must look into). I think I’d prefer it to work like other forms of resistance where damage is halved automatically and halved again if the save is made (or am I confused there?).
A Super Critical Hit
I’m also a fan of super criticals. Basically, an optional rule from 2nd edition was that a natural 20 to hit didn’t necessarily mean an automatic doubling of damage. A natural 20 meant that you get to roll again, and, if you hit again, you get double damage. But there’s a special perk. If you get another natural 20, you can roll yet again and if you hit again, you’ll get triple damage. And so on. This leaves the possibility of a super-crit where you roll a series of natural 20’s and wind up rolling huge amounts of dice for damage. It, theoretically, could go on forever (not that it actually ever would) but it gets progressively harder with ever d20 roll. For the math-happy, the first d20 has a 1 in 20 chance of being rolled. The second, a 1 in 400 chance. The third, a 1 in 8000. The fourth, a 1 in 160,000. And so on. In my experience, I think I’ve only seen a single case where a player rolled three natural 20s in a row. But, with Super Crits, it is possible for Bard the Archer to take down Smaug the Dragon with a single well-placed shot.
Higher Level Spell Slots
I’m not sure if this is ever addressed in the rules, but I don’t like how some spells can use higher level slots to cast them, but other spells don’t. I prefer a more regular approach where every spell can be cast with a higher-level slot.
For example, going by the spell description, a magic missile can be cast with a first level slot and produce three missiles. It can also be cast with a second level slot and produce four missiles. And so on, up to 9th level where it produces 11 missiles.
Detect Magic, on the other hand, can only be cast with a 1st level slot. If you have a 2nd level or 3rd level slot available, but no 1st level slot, and you have Detect Magic prepared, you cannot cast it (except by Ritual – which isn’t relevant here). If it were me, I’d allow you to burn a higher-level slot, but if there is no special effect listed for higher-level slots in the spell description, it simply has the same effect as what it would have at the base level. In other words, you could cast a Detect Magic with a 4th level slot, but it would simply be indistinguishable from a Detect Magic cast with a 1st level slot. This allows for certain emergency uses, because most of the time, you won’t want to waste higher-level slots without some payout.
Conclusion
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on certain house rules. If I ever get around to DMing a game or two, I may try them out. Until then … nada.
The Wizard's Inkwell 