House Rules & Expectations

Phandalin Campaign with Terry Sasaki as DM

Most importantly, the Goal for our weekly game sessions is for everyone to have fun; so long as your fun isn’t had at the expense of another player.

If you have questions about game play or in game mechanics, feel free to ask because it’s hard to have fun if you are completely lost or have zero clue what’s going on.

1) Full Round Action: If you sacrifice everything you are going to do into a single action (instead of doing an ranged/melee attack or ranged/touch spell, movement, reaction, object interaction), then you will receive a bonus toward what you are doing (i.e. doing twice as much as normal, advantage on the roll, lower DC needed to achieve result, etc…).

2) General vs Specific: The more specific you are about a certain action, the more likely you are to succeed. Now if you are too specific or extremely specific, there is a higher chance of failure. (i.e. I want to search the robber, especially his boots vs I want to search the robber’s boots. The first way allows you to search both the robber & his boots, while the latter only allows for searching his boots, which means if the item you are trying to find is hidden in his belt, you’d miss it. The DC is adjusted & based on how you phrase your investigative question; try to be as specific as possible without being too specific)

3) Difficulty Classes: DnD 5e has made them more absolute than previous additions. Either you succeed or you fail, there is no in-between. That’s not the way I DM, I play that if the DC is set at 15, and you roll a 19, then you of course succeed easily, now on the other had if the DC is set at 20 and you roll a 19, you could still succeed but, with caveats (i.e. you successfully pick the lock, but your lock pick gets stuck and you cant remove it without it breaking it). Similarly, getting 5 or more than what is required would be a critical success.

4) Natural 1 vs Natural 20: In most campaigns, a Nat 1 is an auto-fail & a Nat 20 is an auto-success, while in others they aren’t really any more significant than any other roll. For me, it’s important, so I treat a Nat 1 as a -5 and a Nat 20 as a +5 (so -5 vs 25). So although you don’t automatically fail or succeed on a roll, you are more likely to get either a epic failure or a great success. I also allow use this principle with skills that don’t normally have critical success/failures in D&D 5e.

5) Take a 10 or 20. Under certain circumstances, I allow players’ to take either a 10 (playing it safe) or a 20 (taking your time) instead of rolling.

Some actions don’t accumulate enough time to get a 20, but because you aren’t stressed or in a hurry, you can take a 10, or even a 15, depending. If you have all the time in the world to do an action and you take that time to be through in the task or action you are taking, the time spent actually increases the likelihood of success, then you can take 20 as if you rolled a 20 (doesn’t count as a Nat 20).

In other words, when you have a ton of time to do an action & there are no consequences to failure (eg, searching a room) then you can take a 20 (as if you kept rolling over & over again until you get a 20). Obviously if you fumbled the roll that you chose to make, then you might break something or otherwise make it obvious that someone conducted a search. So sometimes it is wise to take the 20 if you have a hour to conduct a search (while taking a short rest for example).

6) Actions in Combat: In 5e RAW (rules as written) normally you are allowed to ready an action. A readied action is a pre-prepared action that will happen if or when specific things occur (i.e. I will attack the first enemy that walks through the door) and this action is lost if the specific thing (enemy walking through the door) doesn’t occur before the end of the round. You can’t choose not to do the action if the trigger happens even if you change your mind. Also you can only ready one action (eg, you can’t ready a move then attack only a move or an attack).

However, I allow you to delay your entire turn. This means that you will willingly drop down in the initiative order to a lower spot (i.e. let another player go before you). This allows you to keep your entire action ( ranged/melee attack or ranged/touch spell, movement, reaction, object interaction), but this is now your permanent initiative spot for the remainder of combat.

7) BE READY FOR YOUR TURN: Please know what you plan on doing when it gets to be your turn. If you are truly unsure of what you can do or want to do, ask for a clarification, or even a question about the enemy or situation that resulted in this combat situation. (This may require you to make an ability check).

Think about it.  If you are at a Starbuck, or Burger King or similar place with a long line, then how do you feel when someone who has been in the line for a half hour suddenly STARTS trying to think what they should get only when they get to the front of that line?  Wouldn’t that frustrate you?  Wouldn’t that mean that everyone in the line has to wait that much longer for their order?  So please be polite & try to figure out what you are planning to do while other ppl’s turns are occuring.

8) Alignments: The way DnD 5e handles alignments is a special pet peeve of mine. I adhere to the classic way of thinking, which is to say that Lawful denotes players who are more into structure, rules, laws, order, consistency, etc… and Chaotic is the opposite, more about whims, or how a character feels at that time. Good or Evil is all about intent vs a result.

Example: a Lawful Good NPC or PC may own slaves, because the laws in his/her country would allow the ‘free folks’ to be completely exploited and defenseless but as slaves they could be protected because according to the law, they are the property of the owner and are untouchable. Obviously, the good NPC, did this to be able to provide protection, housing, jobs even if on paper they are listed as ’slaves’.

Conversely, a Chaotic Evil NPC or PC may actually go around secretly ‘rescuing and freeing’ the slaves, if their intent is to weaken the Lawful Good character. They then recruit the newly freed slaves to their army, which they use to either overthrow the local government and then turn them into their personal slaves, or to betray them by ransoming them back to their former owner, or even selling them to another for more money.

Many ppl misunderstand Chaotic Neutral…They believe that this allows them the freedom to do what they want, when they feel like it. However, CN is actually very restrictive.  Because you are chaotically neutral, that means that you RANDOMLY are good or evil or self-serving or selfless.  It is as if you are insane & roll randomly at each encounter what you will be.  One night you will defend your party to the death, then next day you will leave them for dead & steal all their items almost as if you are rolling dice to decide what you should do at any time.

9) Advantages & Disadvantages: In DnD 5e, advantages and disadvantages don’t stack, you are only allowed 1. For me they do.

Example(s):

A. You have an racial ability that offers advantage and a class ability that gives you advantage, instead of only getting to roll 2 d20 and take the highest roll, you roll 3 d20 and keep the highest roll.

B. You have 5 abilities or things that grant you advantage, but also have 2 that grant disadvantage, you would roll 4 d20 and keep the highest roll.

C. You have 2 things that give you disadvantage, so you would roll 3 d20 and use the lowest score.

10) Invisibility & Darkness: Some say that ppl automatically know where ppl are in darkness or if they are invisible unless they specifically take the hide action.  That is false.

RAW: “An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a spe⁠cial sense. For the Purpose of Hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature’s Location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves.“

The reason for the confusion is that ppl who claim their explanation is RAW points to the third sentence to show that the creature’s position is known because unless someone is relying totally on sight to detect creatures, they can tell by noise or tracks, etc.

However, these individuals aren’t so great at English because it actually says “can be detected” not that it “is detected”.  All this sentence does is leave the possibility of detecting an invisible creature through various other means.  What about a creature levitating by magic?  Will it make sounds or tracks?  So why do you automatically know its general location unless it takes the hide action?

Furthermore, their supposedly RAW explanation will make certain features almost useless such as “Blindsight”.  This is because per their rules, someone who is Invisible can hide from either a regular person or a Blindsight just as easily.

For me, this is dumb.  If an invisible creature has to take each of their actions to hide every round, it is essentially a useless ability.   If someone starts off behind a wall/total cover, then they start off as hidden, until they do something to reveal themselves or someone takes the time to try to find someone behind the wall.

How I treat this situation is by making it an escalation of actions, skill checks, etc.

So if an invisible creature just “carefully” moves by a sentry, they use opposing perception & stealth checks.  If the invisible creature actually takes a stealth/hide action, then the invisible has advantage & the sentry rolls normally.  If the sentry takes an actual perception action, then if the invisible just rushes to sneak by (ie, doesn’t take an action to be stealthy), then the sentry’s perception check is at an advantage.  If they both take actions, they roll normally.  If the sentry takes a full round action to perceive, then they get advantage & the invisible creature taking an action rolls normally (bc an invisible creature can’t take a full round action while moving…but can if they pause to stay still & hidden while the sentry is trying to detect them).

So the more effort each takes in their perception or stealth checks the better chance they have.  But the invisible creature starts with a massive advantage.

There are many other things one can do to defend against an invisible creature such as use a readied action (the invisible creature reveals its general position when attacking even when using greater invisibility), cast darkness to even the odds, use flour or similar to reveal the invisible, have one character use an action to detect & point out the invisible creature, etc.

11) Attendance: Please show up on time or let me know at least 24hrs in advance if you are unable to make it (short of an emergency). This is just a basic common courtesy & allows me to get back our deposit before we lose it.