Wizards of the Coast has done a fantastic job of creating a set of rules that are extremely comprehensive. These rules and guilds help create the foundation of every players experience in Dungeons & Dragons. However, sometimes things need to be more flexible, adaptable or down right more chaotic. That is where homebrew, or "house" rules come in.
Here are ten of our favorite Dungeons and Dragons homebrew rules to try out in your next Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Keep in mind, not all tables are alike and making sure a rule is good for your table is important before implementing it.
Health Potions As A Bonus Action
Health potions at our table often come up as a topic of frustration. The players at the table often try to argue not needing to spend an entire action to drink a potion. Which is why we have implemented the rather common homebrew rule that Health Potions, specifically, count as a bonus action when you drink it yourself.
There is a variation of this rule that expands further on it for clarity. If you give the potion to an incapacitated ally, that will require a full action. This compromise still forces players to consider how they spend their actions wisely during combat.
Critical Skill Checks
Making an investigation check can be an incredibly tense moment given the right setting. However, in the rulebook, a Natural 1 or Natural 20 have no promises of success or failure when rolled on a skill check. Which is what has spawned the ever popular critical skills check house rule.
If your character rules a natural 20, no matter how dangerous the task, no matter how unfathomably hard it is, you complete it. On the inverse though, a Natural 1 could spell utter disaster.
Author Note: Dungeons and Dragons combines dice and storytelling brilliantly. A memorable moment in our campaign was when a character rolled a natural 20 on an investigation check. Despite not searching in the ideal spot, we embraced a homebrew rule that turned his "stubbornness" (the natural 20) into success. After diligently searching a small room for over 30 minutes, he triumphantly discovered a hidden item beneath a pile of overlooked blankets. He was rewarded for the natural 20, but since he wasn't looking in the right spot, there was a trade of time to find. This is what we call "Active DMing" at it's core.
Shared Inspiration
Sometimes, you are just a person who gets inspired a lot. However, Inspiration at most Dungeons & Dragons table is not stackable. This homebrew rule allows for a player to make a choice to keep the inspiration or pass it to another player.
This rule does a great job of building comradery between players as people often appreciate when an inspiration dice is shared with them. We are fans of this at our table because we have some players who are really good at making the Dungeon Master laugh, which is what leads into our next Homebrew Rule.
Make The Dungeon Master Laugh
What is a session of Dungeons & Dragons if people aren't laughing and having fun? At it's core, Dungeons & Dragons is a way for people to have fun in a fantasy world while bonding with friends. Enter the laughter.
At our tables, this rule has two variations. First is if you want to try and do something and you can make the dungeon master laugh with your explanation, you get advantage on the check. Which, for some of the insane ideas we have seen brewed up at our tables, that advantage has saved a few characters from sure death.
The second variation of this rule is that if you hit the perfect timing for a joke, and you make the DM laugh, you get an inspiration dice. This is more subjective to the DM if the inspiration gets handed out but it's still a fun way to reward people for laughing and enjoying their time together.
Level 1 Character Feat or Magic Item
As a Dungeon Master at our table, short of being asked "Did we level up yet?", the second most asked question is "Can we get a feat at level 1?" It's worse then a kid asking "are we there yet" in a car ride.
So at our tables, for anyone adventure we start at level 1, players can pick between a feat or a uncommon magic item, with the Dungeon Masters approval. When it comes to the feat, here is a table of feats that make sense to connect to specific classes which helps balance this early game advantage to characters.
Adjusted Flanking Rule
Typically, in the rulebook, you gain a +2 to your roll to hit when you attack a creature considered to be flanked. Our rule takes it a step further.
If you manage to stick a create in a pickle of a situation, characters gain advantage on attack rolls against a create that is not facing them but being flanked. This rewards teamwork during combat and communication.
Enhanced Death Saves
This homebrew is arguably the one most disliked at our table. Not because it's a "bad" homebrew rule, but rather because it adds more intense situations to challenging combat scenarios.
When a character becomes incapacitated and comes back by making all three required death saves, they come back with 1 HP and 1 additional point of exhaustion. If a character receives healing from any source, then they come back up without an additional point of exhaustion.
The reason, as a Dungeon Master, we love this rule is due to the resource choice it requires. In Dungeons & Dragons 5e, with death saving throws being public rules usually, players can make meta gaming choices rather easily. Even if they aren't trying to "meta". This forces them to make a choice to let the character get up on their own, if rolls are going well and have exhaustion or spend some resources and get them back up without any lasting problems.
Cleave Damage (+Splash Damage)
This rule is one that our melee characters are huge fans of, and spell casters enjoy too. Essentially, it's super boring when you roll big damage on a target that is low on HP to where it's just comical how much damage gets wasted.
So we have a rule that if any creature is within 5 feet of the target that took the initial damage, the remaining damage is cut in half and transferred to one target within 5 ft. of the creature that died. For melee, this is easy to justify as they may "cut" through them and the attack carries through. For spellcasters, this is a different situation. We flavor it up that the attack hit so hard that it knocked the creature off balance, because it was so weak already, and falls into the next target, which allows the damage to be spread.
Dynamic Initiative
We NEVER suggest this for parties larger than 4 or 5. It will make combat much longer if run with a larger party, however it is arguably one of our most favorite homebrew rules.
At the start of every round of combat, re-roll initiative. This keeps combat intense and makes players have to be more on their toes. This is not a homebrew rule we suggest for new Dungeon Masters as it can be a lot to manage. However, an experienced DM, running a table of veteran players can challenge them to think in different ways when it comes to this homebrew rule.
Combo Breakers!
This is hands down our favorite rule as Dungeon Masters and our Players love this rule. The idea of this homebrew rule makes players have to think of the other party members as well as it can create interesting storytelling moments.
The rule is simple. If you roll a natural 20 on a roll to hit, the attack hits so hard that a fellow party member sees a chance to get a free attack in.
The way this works is the original attacking character roles their critical damage however you normally would for your table. Then, they picked an additional ally to roll damage on either a roll to hit melee attack, or ranged attack (must be cantrips if a spellcaster is chosen). The second person does not need to roll to hit, they just do damage right away.
Author Note: One of the best DM moments I ever had was when my level 5 party of six players stumbled into a rather large vampire nest. This was rough, I was sure one or two characters were going to die here. They managed to methodically cut their way through the vampire pact making it to the queen of the nest. They engaged in combat and a lot of the character where down to single digit health. Our fighter in the party, that was dual wielding hand axes, managed to score two critical, one on each of their attacks, and a 19 roll to hit on their third attack since they had two attack actions as this point. For the first critical they had the warlock of the group attack and they used eldritch blast, which at level 5 has 2 beams. Then, they had the wizard on the second attack pop a fire bolt, what had upgraded damage now too. Between the 3 hits from the fighter, the warlock and the wizard, they did 75 points of damage in 1 turn as level 5 characters. They were so pumped when the fire bolt burned the vampire queen to a shriveled mess and they got back to town to claim their bounty reward. At the end of that session, the party all agreed we can never run a campaign without the Combo Breaker homebrew rule again and now years later it is a staple of rules at our table.
As a final note, at our tables, every rule that benefits the players, also benefits the enemies if applicable. So the Health Potion rule, Combo Breaker and more can also be done by enemies too. So this forces players to keep their eyes open to what is happening around them and making sure the fight stays as fair as possible, should it be designed that way!
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