House Rules

These rules are in place specifically for any game run by Jeff / Nket, and are not to be considered rules for any games taking place in the discord server, or even as suggestions for you at your table. These are the homebrew rules that work for me - I've kind of run the gamut of House Rules and tried a lot of different things, but these are the ones that really worked for me in 5e and thus claimed their place on this short list.

1. Rule of Cool

This is number 1 for a reason - in my opinion it's the most important part of D&D. Improvisation should never be hindered by a technicality, or made more difficult by a lack of rule structure to facilitate an outside-the-box idea. Within reason, if a player wants to do something otherwise not covered or permitted by the rules that a) makes sense in the moment and b) is pretty heckin cool, I'll make a judgement call on the fly to allow those actions and decisions in order to keep the game interesting and the world open and real.

2. Signature Cantrips

Cantrips are kind of boring, the non-damage-dealing kind definitely fall by the wayside and become things that are typically used as hand waves for cleaning or brief RP-centered jokes. With that in mind, and keeping with the spirit of Rule Number 1, any cantrip that does not deal damage can be used as a Bonus Action, even if it's casting time is labeled as an action. Distract an enemy with a loud bang, divert enemy reinforcements with a booming voice, block a door with a heavy mound of stone. (This doesn't apply to True Strike, so sadly that spell will remain totally useless.) The world is your oyster!

3. Potions as Bonus Actions

Nothing more to say, really. Potions are bonus actions.

4. Flanking

5e's ruleset grants advantage for a lot. A lot of class abilities, feats, spells, items, or circumstances can give you advantage on an attack roll - for that reason, I use a flat +Attack bonus for flanking, in three different positions. An important thing to note right away is that any ability or feat (or anything) that requires you to have advantage will still work with this flanking rule. So for Rogues or anyone else that has something stating "when you have advantage on an attack," it will apply to this flanking home-brew rule.

So long as you have a friendly target within 5 feet of an enemy, you'll get these bonuses to your attack.