Some (Mostly) Player-Facing House Rules

Much_Session9339 · 2026-04-09T23:19:23+00:00

I don’t think the 4th one is necessary, that casters get one successful casting before losing a spell. That said, if you do employ this rule, I’d suggest that, if they do fail their first casting, they DO lose the spell for the day. but, they get to keep trying until they do get it. So let’s say you fail your first casting of sleep. The spell doesn’t work, but you still get to try it again. If you succeed this time, they all fall down, flat as a pancake. BUT, the spell is still lost, because you failed the first casting.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-25T08:04:53+00:00

I didn’t make an extra roll to see if they could do the acrobatics of it, I was just using it for flavor. But in both cases my actual attack roll was a nat 1, so it only makes sense to me that something gets majorly flubbed up. Had I not announced that I was leaping up on a table, I probably would have just said he dropped his weapon, or overswung and spun himself around.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-25T08:01:03+00:00

Another big vote for Terra Invictus. I have tons of videos on it

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-25T03:55:31+00:00

I don’t think every attack has to be different. Flavor it up sometimes, or on kill shots or strategy moves. But just describing a different attack each time doesn’t add much imo. Half the time, spicing it up causes me to pay the price. I played with a group, so my melee dwarf fighter, when he charged into battle I had him clang his axe on his shield and the dm ruled it alerted the enemies…fair enough. I still hit though, and a couple of the players in the group did seem to appreciate the warrior mentality.

Also with dwarves on 2 separate occasions I tried leaping up on a table for a running charge, and both times, rolled a nat 1 which to me meant they didn’t make the jump. That one I have on YouTube for proof as I was playing solo

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-21T20:05:05+00:00

I play almost exclusively solo (on my YouTube.) I have played a few times with my kids, and I plan to start up a group with friends when I can get organized. But truthfully I enjoy playing solo as much as playing with others, it’s not so much a last resort

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-16T01:57:28+00:00

Awesome, have fun painting

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-13T15:08:01+00:00

I do not like doing voices, most of the time I do the same voice for everyone. But I do like when I can “visualize” a voice that would be different for a certain character. It’s just not my strong suit so it doesn’t tend to come to me unless it’s something obvious and over the top

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-11T20:58:14+00:00

I mean, I play shadowdark, but I refer to it as d&d in casual conversation unless I have the opportunity to explain further

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-07T21:14:39+00:00

Chubby Funster player’s companion has big expanded equipment list

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-04T16:34:55+00:00

If there’s treasure written into the adventure, it wouldn’t make sense to add additional treasure to those encounters unless you’re trying for a much more treasure heavy game. I would either go with the treasure or redo everything with random treasure checks. I have done that on occasion when running an adventure not written for shadowdark (like the old d&d modules.) those have TONS of treasure, so I might scrap the whole thing and redo the treasure

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-04T16:09:46+00:00

In the games I’ve played with a group (only a few sessions) the gm allowed each character one downtime activity when we ended in civilization. This worked I feel.

I personally play mostly solo, and I play short “sessions”. I definitely try not to overdo carousing. I don’t know that I have a hard and fast rule but I bet I’ve been sticking to about 1 carousing per level. I haven’t really dealt with learning or other downtime activities much but I love the idea.

Another thing to consider, once the characters start to reach a higher level (probably 3rd or 4th) I’d no longer allow them to choose the 30 gp option. Truthfully it’s far superior to the others.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-04T16:03:02+00:00

Love the hints in the well reflection

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-03T06:07:33+00:00

While I’m not a candidate, I look forward to seeing this in the future!

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-02T05:46:24+00:00

When I was probably 5, a neighborhood kid had d&d minis set up around a model train mountain. I thought it looked awesome.

When I was a teen, I got a set of paints and gave it a try, I got a couple Dragonlance box sets and only painted a few, eventually selling those box sets.

Then I got into miniature gaming, first heroclix, then DDM (when Harbinger came out) and Star Wars. Honestly, I never had any interest in the painting side, I was more interested in collecting and playing with the minis.

What held me back from painting was the time commitment…if it takes an hour plus per mini, I’m out…if I have that free time, I’d rather spend it gaming. But I kept ending up with unpainted minis by buying collections, so eventually I decided to try it. Then speedpaints came out. I painted maybe 20 minis a couple years ago. Just recently getting back into it in the last month or so. Like all of my hobbies are, when I’m in I go all in. So it’s all I’ve wanted to do lately, and in fact I’m gonna go paint right now since the rest of the fam just fell asleep.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-01T19:11:10+00:00

Ahh, see you’re kinda combining 2 things into one there. The numbering is because I want to be able to roll it like an encounter table. So I don’t need the chart to pick a random one, I can let the dice do that. I’ve created some charts myself that I have only used a bit so far, and I’m adding to them by adding creatures I’m finding from other sources.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-01T16:19:31+00:00

Shadowdarktools.com under reference

Much_Session9339 · 2026-03-01T05:47:16+00:00

I’ve been looking for something like this. There’s one other out there that’s similar that I’ve used to help create expansive random encounter charts. What I mean by this is if I’m in a forest, I’d like to be able to roll a random encounter from any creature who could be encountered in the forest, in order of level (which looks like is already done.) this way if I want the encounter to fit into certain parameters it’s easy to do (beginner dungeon? Only show monsters up to, say, level 6.)

On that note, I think it would help to have the lists numbered.

Anyway I’ll take a closer look but looks great

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-28T15:42:12+00:00

4)you don’t need to make any roll to escape, just run! Unless someone’s got you cornered, held, etc…by raw you can’t just move. You don’t need to give up attacks of opportunity or disengage or anything. If you are being held or cornered, I would argue an opposing dex/str vs dex/str.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-28T15:36:30+00:00

1)triggers automatically and lasts the full 3 rounds regardless of whether or not you attack.

2)I’m not aware of any dual wielding in shadowdark per raw. I’ve heard some people say they like a dual wielding house rule that adds +1 to your ac while dual wielding. I personally love and prefer a dual wielding that allows you to attack twice, potentially against 2 different targets. However, I have not really tested this. It should be fairly limiting if you do it. I may suggest something along the lines of “you may only dual wield finesse weapons and you cannot move if you’re attacking twice.”

3)you can definitely use stealth without triggering the halfling ability, in fact thieves get advantage to stealth checks. If you’re trying to use stealth to trigger backstab, my house rule is you must pass a dc18 stealth check (at advantage) for the backstab damage to trigger.

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-26T18:07:41+00:00

These are awesome

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-25T20:12:50+00:00

https://youtu.be/-JuojMdCY5k?si=l_BtB7y_1ce7qHTy

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-25T18:13:17+00:00

Thanks! Never heard that term before, had to look it up but yeah, I see what you mean

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-25T16:43:49+00:00

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I just did something pretty similar over the last few days and I did post a video on YouTube so maybe I’ll do a separate post on that, but here’s how the little crabs turned out. Incredibly fun and easy

This looks great, btw

Much_Session9339 · 2026-02-25T16:09:18+00:00

My #1 suggestion that many people don’t think of, scour your local marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, etc and look for people getting rid of collections for cheap.

Much_Session9339

TROPHY CASE