The Archmage’s Alternate Rules: Part 1

The Archmage’s Alternate Rules: Part 1

One of the most fun aspects of any tabletop roleplaying game is being able to tinker with the rules and create an experience that you and the rest of your group is interested in having. Over my course of GMing in Dungeons & Dragons there have been several rules we have expanded on and revised over time for the sake of our game. Some of these you may have seen me mention or explain before, but I wanted to give an idea of all rules currently used or considered for any 5e game that I run.

“Spider-Sense Initiative” or Awareness Initiative

A lot of us are familiar with Spiderman. If Spiderman was a D&D character, his initiative would be ridiculously high, but any of us who know anything about Spiderman know that it is arguable as to whether his initiative is based on his Dexterity, i.e. his superhuman reflexes, or his famous and extra-quotable “Spider-Senses”. Essentially, Spiderman’s reaction time are always augmented by this 6^th sense that gives him omnidirectional awareness of the world around him. We could argue one of three things, Spiderman has a super high Dexterity, he has the Alert feat, he combines his Dex & Wisdom on his initiative rolls, OR he can use his Wisdom modifier on his initiative checks… plus having Alert.

In many turn based video games, there is often a speed factor in combat. Pokemon is a prime example. I have Pikachu, have Blastoise. I use Thunder, you had a Blastoise. Speed factors, like Initiative assume it is only based on reflexes. Though Spiderman, and real life beg to differ. Awareness plays a tremendous part in response time. 3.5 highlighted this well their rules for the “surprise round.” In lieu of this, there is a “surprised” state in 5e. Surprise and awareness are not two halves of the same coin. Surprised creatures still roll initiative, they just can’t move or act. However, awareness and perception play no greater part in initiative. It is you’re surprised or you’re not. In this contest everyone but Dexterity based characters loses. Fast characters, yet again have the upper hand.

What about creatures that are just aware, and ready to act? In a real fight, the guy who is more ready, is usually the winner, not the guy who is faster. The guy who is faster has a physical advantage, but it is not the only factor.

So we have two versions of the Awareness Initiative:

A creature may use its Dexterity or Wisdom modifier to determine its initiative bonus.

OR

A creature adds its Dexterity + its Wisdom modifier to determine its initiative bonus.

In this style of initiative, the first rule allows characters with high Wisdom scores to compete with characters with high Dexterity scores. If your healer closer to first, he has less work to do early on, but if he is always going last, he has the hardest job.

The second version allows the two concepts of Speed and Awareness to play a direct roll with each other as they do in more realistic situations. With a lower attribute with either, the character will be, naturally, less ready to fight, but that is more of a reason to be careful choosing your ability scores, however, this doesn’t doom characters to always go first or last still, it gives a better chance to characters of more mediocre stats. If you have +3 in Dex, and a +1 in Wisdom, congrats! You now have a much higher chance of going before say, an adult red dragon who would only get a +1 to initiative rather than a flat +0. Solars, the Fabio-esque celestials, would get an other worldly +13 to their initiative which is more befitting than just a +6 because (sarcasm warning) a level 1 halfling rogue is, of course, almost as likely to be as fast as an archangel in combat readiness. If you look at the Monk, you may notice that the Monk’s Unarmored Defense bonus is based off of this same formula. Monks, would of course, have amazing initiatives. Have you seen a Jet Li movie? If you can move like that, there is no way you aren’t ready for a fight.

Of the two, I am more likely, with my player’s permission, to use the second of the two. It will create a more interesting dynamic for players, and alter how battle tends to go. Keep in mind, should a character get a bonus to initiative from a class feature, it will propel them ahead, but no more than it already does. Should you use this rule, be careful with your dump stats.

Ready and Waiting rule

I have encountered another problem regarding initiative: How does it feel when you roll a natural 20 on initiative, and the guy who rolled a 15 goes before you? Same team or not, it doesn’t feel great. Your character was ready and waiting to act. There is no reward for it. Traditionally, we like to be rewarded for natural 20’s and punished for natural 1’s. Like may be a strong word, but it is tradition. To right this, I employ what I call the Ready and Waiting rule: 

When a creature rolls a 20 on an initiative check, the creature has advantage on the first attack roll or ability check it makes in that encounter. If a creature rolls a 1 on an initiative check, it has disadvantage on its first attack roll or ability check it makes in that encounter.

In essence, it is a pretty simple rule for a simple concept, if you are at your most ready, you should have the highest chance of success, at your most unprepared… well, the opposite.

Morale Advantage/Disadvantage

Aside from being shaken, as we once called it, or frightened, there is very little that is representative of the emotional effect that the events of the game have on the characters. DM_Starhelm, aka Andy told me about a method used in one of the many podcasts he listens to, in which on a natural 1, when the character fails at whatever they are trained at, the GM asks the player, what went wrong in the fiction of the game. If that isn’t enough and you want some backup to your natural 1’s and 20’s I recommend the following:

When you roll a 20 on an ability check, you gain advantage on the next ability check you make within the next minute. When you roll a 1 on an ability check, you gain disadvantage on the next ability check you make within the next minute.

This rule is reflective of a character’s confidence, and hitting a “streak” of sorts. People have off days, and on days, people perform better when they are confident and less so when they are shaken by something. I would rather see this system used than the cockamamie idea that a natural 1 or natural 20 cause the impossible to happen. You can’t intimidate doors, you can’t seduce mindless undead, if you fall a distance of 2 feet, you don’t explode on impact! A natural 20 meant you did your utmost, not that reality now bends for you. A natural 20 is not always an automatic success, because I can try to jump into a different dimension by using a human slingshot, a radio antenna, and a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide. I promise you it will not work 5% of the time. If we want to reward/punish these numbers to make more interesting gaming, use these play forward rewards/penalties. If you think advantage or disadvantage is too much, add or subtract an extra half of your proficiency modifier to the next roll instead.

Exploding Dice

In a previous article, I wrote about exploding dice. Essentially when you roll damage from an effect, if you roll the maximum number on a damage die, roll another of the same type and add it to the roll. If you roll the maximum number again, do it again. Continue this process until no dice have rolled the maximum number. As a personal rule, I tend not to use this with things like persistent damage like poisons and the like, because no one wants to die from a bad cut from a Sword of Wounding, but that’s just me.

However, I did not expand upon two important rules I learned to add later on: Healing, and how to handle critical hits. To keep healing from being disproportionate, because miracles do happen, actual healing die (not temporary hit points) do explode. If damage explodes only, that makes healing far less effective, especially if someone only has a 1^st level Cure Wounds waiting.  This also, makes healing potions far more effective. Rolling 2d4 + 2 can be a disastrous waste of an action/bonus action. It may save a life, but on a result of 4 (1+1+2), that grants you one more hit, which may turn the tide of battle, but that isn’t really healing. It’s practically only triage, at that point.

Exploding dice are to add a new element of danger into the combat to emphasize lethality. Critical hits as they have existed in table top gaming can be pretty weak. No one likes rolling a 1 on a critical hit and doubling it, or as 5e has, rolling snake eyes on a critical hit. Critical hits can feel seldom critical. All of that design space went to people like rogues, paladins, and even my own duelist and slayer. Exploding damage however, explores this pretty well. However, when you introduce exploding damage dice, what happens to critical hits? A “critical” hit can be weaker than an exploding die. To fix this, I introduced the following rule on top of exploding damage:

When you score a critical hit, rather than rolling twice the damage dice, maximize the damage from each die, and roll the damage dice once adding it to the maximum result. When you roll the damage dice, any exploding dice still apply.

For example, if you have 1d8 damage with a Strength +3 from a longsword, and you score a critical hit your damage will become 1d8 + 11 (3 +8). Having a starting point assures that critical hits will be at least as good as a normal exploding dice, with the potential of being better. However, I would also recommend an alternative. Damage as good, but as my wizarding friend Nick, would remind me, damage is a stupid use of a spell. Extra damage alone, may not be as good. So thus why critical hits on a natural 20 could, and probably should have a little bit more oomph to them. Fighters, Hexblades, and Magus (Mage College Homebrew) have an expanded critical hit range. If critical hits alone are rewarded then these three classes, (two if you don’t want to use Magus), will be even further augmented to be more dangerous than they already are. Setting an extra effect on a natural 20 levels that playing field in doing damage and adding an effect. This brings us to a rule I call Effective Critical. Effective Critical is partially based in Monte Cook’s Cypher system, Dungeon World, and real world combat application.

In Cypher System, on a critical hit, the player gets to add a minor or major effect to the attack, depending on a roll of 19 or 20, and this is, in part, discussed by the player and GM. Dungeon World is very based in narration and the method of deciding how things occur play out more like a discussion between player and GM. In a real world fight a critical hit is reflective of placing a strike exactly where you want it. Combining these aspects, it encourages narration and creativity. Effective Critical works as following when applied by itself to the normal game:

When you score a critical hit with a roll of 20 on the die, in addition to dealing extra damage, with the help of your DM you may determine an additional effect to try to apply as part of the critical hit. The DM should specify a duration for the effect, and any conditions that apply at their discretion.

Should you fear that the granting something through this kind of dialogue may be a bit much, you can instead add the following stipulation:

The creature must roll a saving throw as determined by the DM to resist the effect after damage is rolled, receiving the full effect on a failed save, and a lesser adverse effect on a successful save. The saving throw DC is 8 + the attacker’s proficiency bonus + their attack modifier.

With the Exploding Dice mechanic attached to the DC variation add the following line:

For every damage die that explodes as part of this critical hit, increase the DC to resist the adverse effect by 1.

Example effects:
On a failed Constitution saving throw the target is stunned until the start of your next turn, on a successful save, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, and can’t use reactions.

On a failed Constitution saving throw the target is blinded for 1 minute. At the each of the end of its turns, it may repeat its saving throw at the end of each of its turns to end this effect. On a successful save, it has disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, attack rolls, and Dexterity saving throws.

By opening the discussion for these effects to take place, critical hits will feel more “critical”. One of D&D’s weakness is that called shots tend to be a mess. With this modification it puts a little bit more control in player’s hands with DMs help, and will make fights more interesting. Do not hesitate to use this rule against players as well, the same goes for any combat rule, unless you want to give your players a definite example, but we don't need kid gloves on do we?

Wrapping Up

I will work on a compendium of these extra rules for D&D 5e that I have come up with or developed, and that will be a separate page. You may notice I have changed a few things in the lay out, there is now a link to the "Laboratory" which is a link to the google drive folder that houses all the available homebrew at the top of the page. You can now search the blog, and more easily look through previous articles by month.

Coming this week:
New Ranger Conclave: The Crimson Arrow
The third and final draft of Slayer

Next week:
We take a look at how to create the perfect Summoner.
The Worst Status Condition: Death
Magus: Version 2