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.

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

Acceptable Sources

• Core PHB
• Xanathar's Guide to Everything
• Unearthed Arcana, although a lot of UA material is superceded by the playtested material in Xanathar's Guide (when in doubt, ask the GM)
• Elemental Evil Player's Companion
• 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
• 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.

Halfling

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, Unearthed Arcana, Xanathar's, and Elemental Evil Player Companion Guide only.
• Healing Spirit is banned.