Introduction#
This is a collection of my homebrew materials for D&D 5e, used in my own games. Each post can work on its own, but they were designed to be used together. Posts have two main sections: the main rules and the design notes, written mostly with GMs in mind. I hope you find them useful for your own tabletop adventures.
You can read more about my design philosophy and overall goals here (coming soon™). In general, I find D&D 5e to be a very solid system, but not without its flaws. Still, 5e lends itself to tweaking existing rules to suit different tables. Of course, not everything should be made into a 5e game - horror in particular does not play well with 5e, which showers the players with more resources at every level.
Acknowledgements#
Many of these rules were inspired by the work and roleplaying philosophy of Mike Shea from Sly Flourish and Dael Kingsmill from Monarch’s Factory.
I am also a big fan of the following podcasts:
Posts#
Injury Rolls When a target is reduced to 0 HP after all current Turn effects are resolved or when successfully attacked while Off-Guard (see Conditions): PCs make a straight d20 Roll on the Injury Table. NPCs or monsters die outright. Non-lethal attacks are covered in the Combat section here (coming soon™). Any additional successful attack against a PC while they are at 0 HP or Off-Guard requires another roll on the Injury Table. If a successful attack or effect deals damage greater than a PC’s maximum HP, they roll on the Injury Table with Disadvantage. Injury Table d20 Roll (chance) Major injury Condition Lasts until Added Strain (after combat) 1–2 (10%) Head Stunned End of PC’s next Turn 4 3–8 (30%) Upper body Battered End of PC’s next Turn 3 9–14 (30%) Lower body Staggered End of PC’s next Turn 3 15–19 (25%) No lasting injury N/A End of PC’s next Turn 2 20 (5%) N/A Adrenaline Rush* End of PC’s next Turn 1 *Adrenaline Rush: A PC recovers 10 HP unconditionally. In addition, they gain Advantage on STR Ability Rolls and their speed is doubled.
...
(Negative) Conditions Incapacitated: the target can take only one of Movement, Action, or Bonus Action on their Turn.
Slowed: the target’s movement speed is halved.
Halted: the target’s movement speed is 0 and they have Disadvantage on DEX Saves.
Grappled: the target’s movement speed is 0, they have Disadvantage on DEX Saves (Halted) and can be dragged; the grappler is Slowed while dragging them.
Restrained: the target’s movement speed is 0, they have Disadvantage on DEX Saves (Halted) and attacks against them have Advantage.
...