A 5E Hit Die House Rule Idea

I have finished reading through the 5E Basic Rules I had printed out at Office Depot. Although I was very skeptical before the release of any 5E product, I am very happy that my initial suspicions were unfounded. I am looking forward to getting the Starter Set in several days and I have been coming up with ideas for adventures when I get a home campaign up and running.

This is the first Wizards edition of D&D that I want to play by the book. The course of D&D has been righted with this release and I am very much looking forward to getting the PHB. I had originally intended to wait until I evaluated the Starter Set and played a few sessions but I am enjoying the Basic Rules enough that I am ready to dive in.

I am in no rush to get started on a big list of house rules. I have not even played a session yet. It seems like a pretty solid rule set and I do not want to go messing around with it before I give the rules as written a good workout. That does not mean I have no ideas for any house rules at all. I do, in fact, have an idea or two that I may implement in the future to see how well they work in actual play.

Hit Die
I think the Hit Die for Fighters (d10) and Clerics (d8) is perfect. I think it makes sense that the Rogue and Wizard both use a smaller Hit Die than the Cleric and Fighter; they both use a d6. I am thinking of changing the Hit Die for Rogues to a d6 and for Wizards to a d4 for no other reason than to fit my perception.

Page 7 of the Basic Rules state that “…hit points define how tough your character is in combat and other dangerous situations.” It makes more sense to me to have the Rogue less tough than the Cleric because the Cleric represents a type of warrior priest instead of a devout member of the clergy. It makes sense for the Wizard to also be less tough than the Rogue and the other classes as well. I wonder if a d4 is too low. I did double check the B/X rules and both the Thief and Magic-User use a d4 for hit points. Interesting.

Final Thoughts
Who knows if I will implement this change any time soon. I can see a few things that I could start working on right now. New races, classes, backgrounds, and trinkets come to mind pretty quickly. I believe I will wait on most of these to see what is in the PHB. Why duplicate something that is coming out in an official write up in a short while? If I work on anything else it will probably be trinkets because that would be a small investment of time if something was duplicated. Have any of you experimented with any house rules yet? Do you have a new race, class, or a rules mod you would like to share?

5 Quick 5E Adventure Ideas…

I have been reading through the 5E Basic Rules I had printed out at Office Depot. The Starter Set was not readily available early in my area and I did not pre-order from Amazon but I am getting one as soon as it hits the stores. In the meantime, I have been writing down ideas for adventures when I get a home campaign up and running. These are just quick fire ideas that are not fully fleshed out. I am keeping this list here for future use and maybe someone else can use them also.

Quick Adventure Ideas

A local trade caravan has recently fallen victim to several raids. The characters have been hired to guard the caravan on its trade route.

Rumors have been circulating among the town folk about the dead rising from the grave. The local law enforcement has dismissed it as drunken ramblings but when they investigated further there were disturbed graves with foot prints leading away from them.

The local gold mine has hit a dry spell so the miners have started digging deeper for a new vein. The miners that have been down to the lower levels speak of “something” lurking in the dark that attacks some of the workers. Recently, several of the workers have disappeared during their shift.

The last surviving member of a local, wealthy family has not been seen for months and their manse has been silent. Suddenly, people have seen sporadic lights and movement in the windows. Has a member of the family returned? Are their squatters staying in the place? The magistrate has posted an announcement looking for a group of people to investigate further.

A local lord’s daughter has come up missing. Did she run off with her boyfriend? Was she taken for ransom? Did she run off and join the new cult in town? Is the answer something even more sinister?

I am ready to get a game up and running!

Discussion of Arneson & Snider’s Adventures in Fantasy

Just a heads up here, but it you are interested in discussion of the mechanics and/or possible house rules for Arneson & Snider’s Adventures in Fantasy role playing game then head on over to The Comeback Inn and join the discussion.  Currently, the efforts seem to be on house rules for cleaning up and clarifying the game.  I hope these are gathered together in an unofficial supplement at some point.

Curse of the Dragon Slayer

If you have Netflix and want to see a low-budget fantasy movie reminiscent of the offerings from 1980s then you might be interested in watching Curse of the Dragon Slayer.  It’s better than any of the D&D movies we have gotten so far.

D&D 5E Basic Rules

I downloaded the D&D 5E Basic Rules yesterday and I have not given them a thorough read through but I have glanced through them several times stopping and different areas to see what a random section has to say on a subject.  I don’t have a lot to say about the new rules other than Wizards officially has my attention, now keep it.  I have really enjoyed what I have investigated so far.  I have heard some people claim it’s “not perfect” but is any of these games ever perfect?  Of course not.  I fully expect there to be things I want to change or wish they had done differently just like every other edition of D&D so that’s par for the course.  I honestly expected to never be interested in another edition of D&D after the 4E era but I am now pleasantly surprised.  I want to see the full PHB now so I can see more of the options.  5E just might have me returning as a regular player…