HOUSE RULES for Dungeons & Dragons 5E (Esper's house rules)

1. Encumbrance. Carrying excessive equipment hinders a character. If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score, you are encumbered. Your speed decreases by 10 feet. You have disadvantage on checks made to swim and Acrobatics checks. If you carry weight in excess of 10 times your Strength score, you are heavily encumbered. Your speed decreases by 20 feet. You have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. 2. Swimming in Armor. Swimming while wearing medium armor increases the DC by 5. Swimming while wearing heavy armor increases the DC by 10. 3. Opportunity Attacks. Actions that take your focus away or cause you to let down your guard give enemies a chance to make an opportunity attack. Some examples include drinking a potion, loading a crossbow or sling (Cross Expert feat avoids the opportunity attack), and interacting with a complex object (lock, trap, puzzle, machine mechanism). 4. Rolling Hit Dice. When you gain a level and roll your class’s hit die, you gain a minimum of half of the die (3 for d6, 4 for d8, 5 for d10, 6 for d12) plus your Constitution modifier. 5. Ability Scores. A player may generate a new character’s ability scores using either the point buy or rolling options. When you generate your ability scores using the rolling method, the total of your modifiers must range between +4 to +8 (in order to avoid a character that is greatly underpowered or overpowered). If they total below +4, re-roll. If they total above +8, adjust some of your scores in order to reach +8. 6. Magic Throwing Weapons. If a weapon has the thrown property and is magical, it returns to the owner after the attack. 7. Vulnerability. Vulnerability causes the target to take 50% more damage (not double damage). 8. Great Weapon Fighter/Sharpshooter Feats. The penalty to your attack is equal to your proficiency bonus, and the additional damage is double your proficiency bonus. 9. Fighter Class (Champion Archetype). Remarkable Athlete: At 7th level, you gain proficiency in Athletics. If you already have proficiency, you gain expertise. Your running long jumps increase by 5 ft. On your turn, you can make a grapple or shove attack as a bonus action. 10. Ranger Class. Use the official ranger class update. 11. Warlock Class. You know your patron’s spells (instead of merely adding them to the class spell list). You know the eldritch blast cantrip. 12. XP for Groups of Monsters. XP gained for fighting groups of monsters includes the adjusted difficulty multiplier. Experience points should be based upon the level of difficulty. (The only exception is with “minion monsters”: monsters that are far below the party’s level or far below the CR of the other monsters in the encounter) Patreon:   / esperthebard   Facebook:   / esper-the-bard-645947038769607   Music "Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Images (c) Wizards of the Coast. Used here for review, critique, and demonstration purposes only.