List of House Rules

In our games we follow the D&D 5 Player's Handbook with some modifications. The aim of most of them is to make the experience more fluid and the DM can always overrule these.

Our house rules so far are the following:
 * 1) To speed up combat every player who plan to attack on his/her round should roll for attack before his/her turn.
 * 2) Food/water consumption of characters is not tracked (unless DM specifies)
 * 3) Encumbrance is not tracked as long as the load is not unrealistic (e.g. halfling carrying a smith's hammer and anvil in his backpack).
 * 4) Equipment HP and hardness are not tracked unless DM specifies or there is an action directly affecting them (e.g. sundering).
 * 5) Camping/survival equipment and food is by default assumed to be carried by the party's horses or in bags of holding (if available).
 * 6) In conversations that are role played the character might be better at gathering information than the player IRL. That's why with an Investigate skill check the player can ask the DM for hints on what to ask.
 * 7) Arrows/bolts that miss their target can be recovered after battle (if terrain allows it, e.g. not a swamp or they don’t hit something hard and break) with a Perception check. By default rolling 10, 15, 20, 25 allows one to recover 25, 50, 75, 100% of these (only the shooter can roll). Note that only arrows/bolts that missed can be recovered.
 * 8) If a character can attack several times per round, only the first attack counts for critical hit/failure. On subsequent attacks a roll of 1 means an automatic miss and ends the character's turn.
 * 9) For critical hits: a natural 20 is a proper critical hit whose effect is to be rolled from our critical hit table. Any other critical hit only applies the critical damage multiplier of the weapon.
 * 10) The cost of magical items is set by the Sane Magical Prices document.
 * 11) Items are sold at 50% of their market value. For especially valuable objects (.e.g high level magical gear) selling them is non-trivial and has to be discussed with the DM. +1 magical items (or ones that cost less than 2k according to Sane Magical Prices) can be bought and sold freely in large cities (e.g. Stoneharbor).
 * 12) When crafting items the player needs to pay a reduced amount of the market price listed in the book/wiki. There is a 50% reduction for crafting yourself but it takes a significant amount of time and may require tools and ingredients. Always discuss crafting it with your DM and refer to the DM guide for details.
 * 13) When facing a (previously unmet) monster in combat, players can roll a knowledge check to determine whether they recognize the monster. If the check succeeds, players are allowed to look up the monster’s stats in the monster manual. The DM should tailor the accepted knowledge skill and the DC to the monster. He/she should also comment if the monster faced in combat is larger or younger compared to the average stats.
 * 14) At level 5 and every 5 levels afterwards (e.g. 10, 15, 20) every character develops ONE new quirk, see the Quirks page for more info.