This page contains links to some of the homebrew content I have made for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The formatting for this page uses css from The Homebrewery to mimic the style of the Player's Handbook, thank you to those who made it!
As a long time player and dungeon master for D&D games in various editions, having played since 2006, I have written and amassed a large quantity of homebrew content and house rules. Over the years, I have organised this content in various places, but I thought it'd be useful to have somewhere I can start consistantly leaving links to my content.
Having links to content here also makes it easier to point my players towards house rules, custom classes, and other relevant info.
Yes, of course, I'd appreciate it if you let people know where it came from though!
I remove the Ability Score Improvement from levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 19 from every class in the game. Instead, you gain an Ability Score Improvement at those total character levels instead.
My reasoning for this is that outside of a few very strong combos, most multiclass characters fall off at later levels as they fall behind in ability scores.
I apply this rule to pretty much anything which flies using wings, so Aarakocra, Giant Eagles, Dragons, etc.
When a flying enemy is hit, they must make a Constitution saving throw, DC equal to half the damage taken, or begin to fall. (For falling speeds, I've varied them based on campaigns, but 500ft per round seems to be a standard. My personal preference would be to lower this for winged characters, to anywhere from 100 to 200ft per round).
Unlike a concentration save, there is no minimum DC, so based on Constitution saving throw bonus, certain players or monsters would only risk falling when taking a single large instance of damage.
My reasoning for this is to balance the strength of easy free flight with some sort of risks.
This will likely take a whole page of its own to write out. The long story short is that shapeshifters must spend time learning new forms, can only know so many at a time, and take time to switch forms. They also can suffer exhaustion if they go over certain soft usage caps.
The reasoning for this is again a balance consideration, with shapeshifters otherwise having an unmatched deceptive ability built in from level 1.
A critical hit (usually rolling a natural 20) which otherwise doesn't roll high enough to penetrate AC becomes a regular hit (for example rolling a crit (20) with a +4 bonus against someone with 25 AC would just result in a regular hit).
A critical miss or failure on a skill check (natural 1) which still passes the required AC / difficulty will succeed, but with some negative side-effect.
My Reasoning here is that high AC characters often only seem to get hit by crits, and so suddenly take crazy damage. Also someone with a huge bonus to a skill should be able to reach a level of consistancy at easy tasks.
During initiative in combat, each character may use up to 4 words per round (resets at the top of initiative order, doesn't need to be during their turn).
A character can use their bonus action to say a short sentence (within reason), or their full action to say as much as someone reasonably could fit in a 6 second period (the length of a round).
The reason behind this is to speed up combat, and encourage less on-the-fly tactical preparation, encouraging players to strategize before fights. It also adds an element of realistic chaos to unexpected combat encounters.
I'll get these neatly written up eventually...
Some 5e characters I threw together for use in test games, feel free to use them