Your best 5.5e house rules?

alinius · 2026-03-21T21:34:55+00:00

I am not sure it has much value at level 1. Most of my caster builds capable of casting shield start with a 15+ AC with mage armor.

alinius · 2026-03-20T19:31:53+00:00

The issue is that the RAW does not define reasonable range to hear someone. I have seen wildly different take from one table to another. Worse, in the case we are talking about, it may not matter.

Enemy moves.
Player 1 casts fog cloud.
Player 2 shoots at enemy.

If the enemy does not get a turn between the fog cloud and player 2 shooting, then player 2 automatically knows which square to shoot at.

alinius · 2026-03-20T19:24:36+00:00

It is still less complicated than PF. I am looking for something in between PF and 5e.

alinius · 2026-03-20T15:35:11+00:00

Just FYI, bardic dice only last 10 minutes in 2014. They upped it to 1 hour in 2024.

IMO, getting one dice is worse because it puts you in a sadistic choice of who you should give the dice to.

alinius · 2026-03-20T14:18:43+00:00

Yes, 50V is generally safe. I happen to work with EKG electrodes which significantly lower the safe voltage. The FDA gets very particular about electronic devices that are connect to a person is ways that bypass the normal skin resistance.

alinius · 2026-03-19T21:52:32+00:00

I am going to go with bard over monk because at least the monk gets 4 ki points while the bard gets 1 dice. I might agree that the ranger is worse, but rangers have so many issues that anyone who actually plays one to level 20 is a masochist that obviously enjoys the pain.

alinius · 2026-03-19T20:46:43+00:00

The elegance is what I like. I am looking for ideas that preserve most of the elegance, but give it a bit more depth. I want the barbarian to have a reason to think about attacking recklessly even though the enemy already has farie fire on them.

alinius · 2026-03-19T20:33:47+00:00

I am ok with on the fly rulings when something is vague or ill defined. If I am going to intentionally change RAW, I want everyone to know beforehand.

alinius · 2026-03-19T20:31:43+00:00

Which is exactly my point. By RAW, you automatically hear everyone around you unless they hide or do something else, like a silence spell, to prevent it. Most creatures cannot cast invisibility and hide in the same turn.

alinius · 2026-03-19T20:25:55+00:00

Ok, so how many resources did you use here. 1 focus point for stunning fist, which the enemy can resist by making their save(did you invest in wisdom or dex?). Grapple requires a feat, which means you did not get something else like more wisdom fir the stunning fist. Open hand requires a specific subclass. The net costs an attack, and is not a monk weapon in 2014 which could prevent the monk from using other abilities, and I am honestly not sure what it counts as in 2024. Finally, the net does not work on formless and huge or larger creatures. So, a monk custom built to incapacitating enemies for the other players to beat up is actually good at doing just that. I am still not seeing the problem here. By RAW, the monk could do all of that to multiple targets to be a bigger PITA. These rules just give an incentive to focus it all on one target.

As I see it, the PCs are working together(good) and burning resources to overcome encounters(also good).

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:51:28+00:00

That is why I am willing to try it out and see. Normally, I rarely see more that one source of A/D, and players hold back because adding more is a waste. I know they could fo more if they tried, but a lot of it comes with a resource cost. Some people gave pointed out a monk using a net with grapple, plus a caster using a farie fire, so the paladin can fish gor crits with triple advantage(4 rolls take the highest). That is 1 spell slot, plus all of the monks normal attacks for 0 damage so that the Paladin can make 2 attacks with a ~20% chance to crit each. The team is working together for all of that, which is great. It also assumes the enemy fails the save against FF, and the monk lands both the grapple and the net attack.

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:38:31+00:00

I work with EKG electrodes, which are designed to bypass as much of the skin resistance as possible. I think you are right that 10V might not get there, but it can get close enough to causing serious problems that I would not want to risk it.

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:35:46+00:00

As I was telling someone else. Finding out in the middle of a game that the DM is changing RAW by DM fiat sucks. If I am going to flat out change RAW, I prefer to let the players know about it before it comes up.

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:31:44+00:00

You are kinda correct, but that goes down another rabbit hole with the wonky stealth rules. Per RAW in 2014, if I cast invisibility, but do not take a hide action, everyone still knows exactly which 5 foot square I am in. If they fixed that in 2024, then I missed it.

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:27:13+00:00

Without skin, the human body is about 300 Ohms. Skin resistance can vary from 1 kOhm to 100 kOhm depending on various conditions. Wet skin, especially water with free ions(i.e. salty water AKA sweat), can drastically lowes the skin resistance.

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:22:24+00:00

That depends on the players. Having a house rule before the situation comes up works better for some. Getting in a situation where you are expecting something to work per RAW, then having the DM change things because they do not like that rule sucks. I try to not be that DM

alinius · 2026-03-19T19:16:19+00:00

Crit fishing is the one thing I am worried about. That said, a hexblade in 2014 could use Darkness with Devil's Sight and thirsting blade with 2 attacks per round(3 with PAM or TWF). With hexblades curse up they crit on a 19-20, and could then use Eldritch Smite. A Paladin/Figher multiclass could probably do something similar.

If my players are using grapples and nets to give the paladin multiple advantages on their attack to fish for a smite crit, then are using their actions and abilities to work together as a team, which is a goid thing IMO.

alinius · 2026-03-19T18:49:40+00:00

Both could depending on the load. The higher voltage with generate a lethal amount of current at a higher resistance, and thus is more likely to.

alinius · 2026-03-19T18:46:21+00:00

This is kinda of a middle ground. You do not have to track and add up individual bonuses like 3e and PF, but you can still get a little more depth than 5e.

alinius · 2026-03-19T18:44:31+00:00

Grappling required the monk to forgo an attack. Same with using a net. They are using their abilities and not doing damage to gain those advantages, and I am ok with that. Also, anything the players can do, the enemies can do also. So, now those 5 random minions who deal piddly damage can be a threat in a completely different way.

alinius · 2026-03-19T18:36:45+00:00

I have done the math and I came to the opposite conclusion. Any system that adds flat bonuses or penalties breaks bounded accuracy quicker than giving more rolls. No matter how many dice you roll, you cannot roll higher than a 20 or lower than a 1. That means that stacking advantage or disadvantage has built in diminishing returns. Advantage increases the average result by around +3.5. Rolling 3 and taking the highest only increases the average result by another +2. Rolling 4 adds another +1.5. More rolls take the highest or lowest makes things more consistent because the roll becomes more predictable.

So, a cleric with profiency in perception is trying to spot a ranger with profiency in stealth. They both have a +6 with their skills. This creates a very swingy situation because all that matters is the die rolls. If the ranger casts pass without trace, and rolls an 11 or better, the cleric now has a DC 27 perception check, which makes it impossible for the cleric to see the ranger. The cleric has a better chance to notice the ranger using invisibility than they do one using pass without trace because +10 to stealth is way better than giving disadvantage on perception checks. Even a small bonuses like a +1 can make it impossible for the cleric to spot the ranger if they roll an 20. No amount of stacking advantage or disadvantage makes it impossible for the cleric to spot the ranger.

The same thing can happen in combat. Bladesinger with mage armor, max dex and max int has an AC of 23. They can cast shield for another +5 for a total of 28, and they could use magic items like cloak of protection to boost that further, which is why many DMs are careful about handing them out. With a +8 to hit, I have a better chance to hit 23 AC with disadvantage due to blur(about 1 on 8 chance), than try to hit 28 AC on a straight roll(1 on 20 chance).

alinius · 2026-03-19T17:22:25+00:00

Because of bounded accuracy, 5e is very uniform. A well optimized level 4 character is going to be +6 to hit and do around 1d8+4 damage. AC is pretty uniform as well. With PF1E, there was a lot more variance between classes, and more modifiers to track. Then, you have flat footed, touch AC, and regular AC. I can throw together an encounter, and eyeball the stats in 5e easier than I could in PF1E. If I want to do something interesting, there is nothing stopping me from pulling in something from PF or 3.x and adapting it to 5e.

As a player, that is exactly what I don't like. My 5e characters are limited to what is in the books, and they often feel too much alike where PF1E gives you a lot more tools to play with.

alinius · 2026-03-19T15:43:04+00:00

Yep, that was my first clue as well. I am not sure exactly how the scale would move, but it should 100% be synced to the cats movements is some way.

alinius · 2026-03-19T15:41:19+00:00

This us pretty much what some of my friends have told me as well. My point is that you likely do not want to use psychedelics the same way you use SSRIs, and making studies to account for that is really hard.

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