5e House Rules

via the memphisgamers wiki

Sage Advice

WotC publishes a monthly column with errata and official rulings on certain things. Answers from each column are compiled into this document.

(above link is from here, which also has book-specific errata compilations)

Official Errata

The "Errata" section on this page keeps up-to-date with the latest from each book. As of November 2018, the list was as follows:

• Player's Handbook Errata 2.0
• Dungeon Master's Guide Errata 2.0
• Monster Manual Errata 2.0
• Horde of the Dragon Queen Errata 1.0
• Princes of the Apocalypse Errata 1.0a
• Out of the Abyss Errata 1.0
• Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide Errata 1.0
• Volo's Guide to Monsters Errata 1.0

Character Creation

• Point Buy: see section "Variant: Customizing Ability Scores"
  • Available Points - 27, point cost increases with bonus
  • Maximum Attribute Before Racial Bonus - 15
  • Minimum Attribute Before Racial Bonus - 8
  • example calculators Calculator1 Calculator2

Language

"Common" exists as "Ubrekti", a sort of Latin-facsimile lingua franca. Human languages have subdivided into several regional tongues, and all human PCs speak Ubrekti and one regional language. Dwarves, elves and gnomes have all maintained enough regional homogeneity that they only have one recognized language apiece, although dialects are recognizable to the trained ear. The old halfling language has been lost to imperialism (more rule-specific details in their section).

While scholarship does exist of the various monster languages, few people care enough to make any special distinctions. For character creation purposes, monster languages may be chosen as they exist in 5e, and any rules differences that come up will be handled in-session.

Acceptable Sources

• Core PHB
• Xanathar's Guide to Everything
• Unearthed Arcana, although a lot of UA material is superceded by the playtested material in official supplements, and some of it isn't playworthy (when in doubt, ask the GM)
• Elemental Evil Player's Companion
• Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
• Selected Homebrew Materials

Feats

• Allowed in place of ability score increases at sufficient level or at character creation for variant humans
  • Base set, Xanathar's, or Unearthed Arcana feats only: UA Racial Feats (PDF), UA Skill Feats (PDF), UA Feats v1 (PDF)

Classes

• Disallowed: Monk
• Probably Disallowed: Mystic (from UA) as psionic abilities are extremely rare
• Newly Allowed: Warlock

Racial

• Disallowed: Tiefling, Dragonborn, Goliath, Gensai, monsters and "all that nonsense", or any race from the non-core sourcebooks that isn't also in the PHB (subraces of races that exist in PHB are, so far, fine)
• Altered: Gnome, Elf, Halfling
• Newly Allowed: Half-Elf

Elf

All elves belong to the "sidhe" subrace.

• +1 Intelligence OR +1 Wisdom
• Elven Weapon Training
• You are proficient in saving throws against death. One per short rest, you may remove one death-save failure as a bonus action. You need not be conscious to activate this ability.
• You do not gain a Silver Swan wondrous item.

Halflings

• There is no halfling language. Instead, halflings may choose one human, demihuman, or monster language.

Available Subraces: Boat Halfling, Road Halfling

• Boat Halfling
  • +1 Constitution
  • You have advantage on all checks made to swim and to hold your breath.

• Road Halfling
  • As Lightfoot.

Gnomes

• Hakani Gnomes
  • As Rock Gnome, except:
    • Replace attribute bonuses with +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma (Or +2? DMG/PHB contradict. Naturally.)
• Wild/Island Gnome
  • As Forest Gnome, except:
    • Replace attribute bonuses with +1 Constitution, +1 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom
    • Replace "Natural Illusionist" with "Mask of the Wild" from Wood Elf entry.
• Breaker Gnomes
  • [???]
    • [???]
    • Not suitable for PCs.

Spells

• Spells from Core Rule Books, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Unearthed Arcana, Xanathar's, and Elemental Evil Player Companion Guide only.
• Healing Spirit is banned.
• Most planar travel and high level planar summoning spells unlikely to work.
• The dead usually stay dead - restrictions on Raise Dead and similar spells: they mostly do not work at all. Even the ones that are possible are only usable within a few hours of death.

Backgrounds

• Backgrounds from Core Rule Books, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Unearthed Arcana, Xanathar's, and Elemental Evil Player Companion Guide with needed changes to match the setting and history.
• House Rules Backgrounds
• Skills granted by background are interchangeable at character creation.