D&D: 5 Alternative Character Creation Rules to Confuse for the Next Homemade Campaign

Do you want to start a new game of D&D? One of the best ways to keep things fresh is to mess with character creation rules. House rules are the trial and true part of the long tradition of D&D. In the early days of D&D, it was expected that DMS would come up with the rules of their own home and make the game feel like they wanted to play at the table. This was before the entire industry came from making homemade materials for people to play with. Even modern tables have this. It is burned into the spirit of “domination, not rules.” Play in a way that makes the game more enjoyable. If that means everyone gets extra feats, then it is. Also, the best way to play with D&D expectations is to find fun ways to ruin the creation of characters. Some tables may already have their own rules. However, here are some popular “prototypes of house rules” that you should consider in your next campaign. Let's drop a dice, which could possibly be one of the rules of many tables' go-to houses. It's about rolling the dice to figure out what your character should be. If you are with the group responsible for it, you can fall the dice where they may be. This means rolling your statistics in turn, rather than assigning them where you want them. Many people have a preferred method of generating characters at random. It drops the lowest, just like rules like “roll roll 4d6”, including rules like “everyone starts at least 14” and “roll three sets and keep one”. “These rules tend to distort the system towards characters with higher power. But that's not a bad thing. It can be especially fun if the whole table is on the way to see where their good stats are and then ride out creating characters/parties from there. Instead of playing X and deciding to build it to suit what others are choosing, you can see where the dice falls and find out you have the perfect Druid, Monk, or Warlock. I love this method. Because they just think about what they're trying to say because they feel like they're making the dice take the wheels. Do you need a backstory? Of course, try LifePas. There's no need to stop the dice with the character. There are so many random tables out there. In writing this list, I did not find a shortage of people who have homemade lifepass systems for D&D (and other systems). These can be anything from tables you unfold to events that will give you perks and penalties in the game to see what events have happened in your life. It all depends on your comfort level. If you're okay with a party that feels a bit out of balance in terms of power, then there's plenty of meat in those particular bones. Even if you don't want to give them any extra benefits, just having a table to roll will help you curate your collection of characters. “White Whale” of many D&D groups that make characters without class is a game that starts with characters as normal people at level 0, as they say. There are no classes. There is no combat function. You may have barely hit points or proficiency, but there is a lot of fun seeing if you can survive the first day of a tragic adventure. There are many systems that have the idea of ​​”character funnels.” Here you can see that the 0-level characters that you roll up survive and get the first level. But even if you're not playing in the campaign's meat grinder, starting from zero level (with some rules to guide you) can lead to a sense of starting in a idyllic small village as people with no clue waiting for them. Especially because even level 1 characters are much stronger and more capable than the average farmer. And whatever level zero Howsel flavor you find/brew, this is how you can really grow into your character. A typical idea here includes a single D4 (+CON MOD) of hit points starting with all ability scores at 10 (increasing as you get closer to level 1) + 1limited's skilled bonus doesn't know that it's good until you get nag, so you can cast a profile that casts a single country as in-game events come out. Many fantasy stories. It makes all the characters a little weird in some way. You can also have all the characters share the same odd thing. Make it a house rule that all characters can be returned from death and thus “sharp in the shadows.” Or, everyone can play as a non-human species. There are many ways to make your world and your campaign unique. Everyone demands that they do the same feat. Or, if you're a good person, it's just one way to do it by granting all the same feats for free. It's the same as when everyone starts out as a first-level fighter or wizard, or decide what you have. Or, if you feel it's too restrictive, for some reason, give everyone additional class features or skills. I usually find it cool and good to get a little extra mechanic as a snack. For a truly bold and bold DMS, players can invite them to come up with their own “personal quest mechanic” that resembles what the characters in Gate 3 of Baldur have. For example, Karlach can use the soul coin to fall into literally fiery rage as she activates the engine of Hell inside her body (at a certain cost to herself). Or he must eat a magical item or else he will explode, but in exchange he has an entire arc with an orb inside him. You don't have to be a Larian studio to come up with these mechanisms. You can try it yourself and see what happens. I'm using the outer class of Core 12 (to be 14 soon), and when everything else fails, I'm always trying to use some of the third party classes. There are so many at this point. By this point, many people will be updating at 5.5E. It's fascinating to say that many DMs “use only official books,” but once you run the course, it can be fun to see what life is like across the WOTC playground. Certainly, it can be a bit overwhelming. So you need to be aware of this and talk to the DM (and, normally, new DMs are hard to tell if you're feeling the OP, but not always!), and your fellow players are about what you're thinking. However, you can find interesting mechanisms and stories to tell from many great books created by creators around the world. Happy Adventure! Subscribe to our newsletter! Get TableTop, RPG, and Pop Culture news straight to your inbox. Staff writers and DMs for Bell of Lost Souls, JR covers all the striped RPGs and sometimes eats sandwiches. You can ask him about either (email protection) Read Comments (1)