Fumble Frenzy: Dungeons and Dragons Players Share House Rules Their Party Experimented With That Backfired

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
May 4, 2024 11:30 AM EDT

House rules… tsk, tsk.

My party is all about pushing boundaries in our DnD campaign. We love going above and beyond. Min-maxing characters? Nah, we crave chaos. But how to go about it? We started implementing house rules, convinced that they would make our already great game a little more dynamic. But hey, we all make mistakes. And this time… boy did we make a mistake.

We mirrored critical hits with a system of wacky consequences for natural 1s. The brave bard ended up setting his lute ablaze twice in one session and the rogue spent more time tripping over herself than picking pockets. Oh, what a fumble frenzy. Our most ambitious rule involved a completely open world. No pre-determined quests, just endless possibilities. In theory, it sounded super epic. But, as you might expect, freedom turned into aimlessness. Players wandered off on tangents, the story became disjointed, and the DM, bless his heart, struggled to keep things balanced. It became clear that sometimes, a carefully crafted campaign is better than a chaotic sandbox.

Scroll down to read what fellow players have to say about this. Next, check out Star Trek memes that will send you on a trip to a faraway galaxy.

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  • 01
    What house rule did your table try out that made them end up saying "well, were never doing THAT again"?
    via u/DeepTakeGuitar
  • 02
    For mine, it was "epic crits". For example, if you crit with a greatsword, you do 12 + 2d6 damage. They are so excited to get huge numbers and wipe out enemies with lucky rolls. Then a cult fanatic crit with a 2nd-level Inflict Wounds, eating through the moon Druid's 100%hp bear form and all but 3 of his actual hit points. There was an immediate call for a vote lol Edit: I appreciate that some of y'all use those crit rules and your tables love them, and I'm glad y'all are having fun, but that's
    via u/DeepTakeGuitar
  • 03
    FoulPelican 1 day ago I had a DM that ruled attacks only hit if they *beat an AC... but that just amounted to everyone and everything, essentially, having a +1 to their AC. 1.7k Reply Share • DeepTakeGuitar OP 1 day ago DM I can't even lol 554 Reply Share
    via u/DeepTakeGuitar, u/FoulPelican
  • 04
    VerbiageBarrage · 1 day ago DM I accidentally passed this onto a fledgling DM. I was explaining opposed rolls, and I told them "Ties go to the defender." They thought that meant for EVERYTHING. 545 Reply Share Shape Charming . 1 day ago My players still have trouble with this Opposed Rolls- Defender wins on a tie Check- Meet or Beat. A 353 Reply Share ...
    via u/VerbiageBarrage, u/Shape_Charming
  • 05
    Arthur-reborn 1 day ago fumble tables 948 Reply Share ... Some_dude_maybe_Joe 1 day ago We did this first week of a new campaign. First fight I get knocked out by the player next to me rolling a 1. Rogue then rolls a 1 and snaps his bow string and knocks himself out. Poor warlock has to deal with 3 bandits himself. Haven't had fumbles since. 497 Reply Share
    via u/Arthur-reborn, u/Some_dud_maybe_Joe
  • 06
    • bp_516 1 day ago I did away with the maximum number of attunement slots. I put them back in pretty quickly when we realized my wife's rogue had a +17 with ranged weapons as a level 5 human. 775 Reply Share • DeepTakeGuitar OP 1 day ago DM Lmao oh boy, I can imagine 147 Reply Share
    via u/DeepTakeGuitar, u/bp_516
  • 07
    ZachalesTerchron · 1 day ago • I feel like this always comes up in these conversations. Crits are fun when they happen but d in did DND get it right. The extra damage might be enough to shift combat but not negate everything that came before it. Then we come to the two outliers. Epic crits... Extra damage maybe a debuff that lasts the combat or you know maybe forever barring a greater restoration. Then we come to the second outlier. Crit fumbles... Drop your weapon, pull a hammy, have spell back
    via u/ZachalesTerchron
  • 08
    The truth behind both of these is one the party makes fewer combat dice roles than the DM while simultaneously playing bodies that are far more important than that of any character the DM runs It may be funny when the goblin fumbles but it's rough when he cuts a leg off your fighter. It may be great when your rouge epic crits the bbge mage (this one happened to me on the player side of the game) but it's far from funny when everything falls apart to an epic crit against the party during the fina
    via u/ZachalesTerchron
  • 09
    These are ultimately statistically detrimental to the party again since the party is overly important to story of the game and NPC's risk nothing when they instantly (”. Sure dice should absolutely be involved in the game but such huge swings means at some point it's coming up nat 1s for the party... So to speak use them at your own risk P.s. Another real issue is both sides of this overly effect martial characters. Good fɩ g luck playing a fighter with 7 plus attacks in a round and deal with a
    via u/ZachalesTerchron
  • 10
    your weapon or whatever. Nothing like being the pinnacle of martial prowess and having a higher chance of slicing your ally that the squire that just grabbed a sword 174 Reply Share TheBelgian Actor 1 day ago That last point about the absurdity of fumble tables affecting high level characters as much as (or more than!) low level ones is quite valid and comes up a lot in these kinds of discussions. That's why when I use them, I first make a player roll a d20 after rolling the nat 1: if they roll
    via u/TheBelgianActor
  • 11
    Chayor 1 day ago DM Our DM for Shattered Obelisk wanted to try lingering injuries, and had us roll whenever we went to Ohp. When my wizard rolled for "paralyzed from the neck down", we decided to rethink that. 63 Reply Share jacknotjohn3131 · 15 hr. ago At my table, I usually run that getting brought back from 0 gives you a level of exhaustion. Has worked pretty well 11 Reply Share
    via u/Chayor, u/jacknotjohn3131
  • 12
    Far-Statistician3350 1 day ago Fumbles are a no go for me. Played with them and they are wildly unfair. You use to have to roll 2 times to get a critical hit, and you only need to critical fail with one check. Also critical fails would often be applied to skill checks that didn't have equivalent critical success chances. Totally screwed up, in my opinion. 221 Reply Share ...
    via u/Far-Statistician3350
  • 13
    Ezde Paz 1 day ago I do the crit one but for players only, since it's often lame when you crit and roll less than a normal hit. I limit it to max only base weapon damage though, since otherwise smites and some spells would get silly huge. 279 Reply Share TheHomieData · 1 day ago I think crunchy crits only for players actually kinda works. When you get into the upper levels some of those higher CR monsters can near one shot a PC with even a regular crit whereas it takes a whole party of adventure
    via u/EzdePaz, u/TheHomieData
  • 14
    TimmyTheNerd 1 day ago edited 15 hr. ago DM • Instead of XP giving a level, players could spend XP to buy levels in classes, but their character's actually level was equal to whatever class they had the most levels in. To make things a bit more balanced, you only gained HP on Level Up if you leveled your highest class. XP cost was basically: 1st Level - 50xp 2nd Level-150xp 3rd Level - 450xp and so on, tripling XP cost at each level.
    via u/TimmyTheNerd
  • 15
    And you have to buy all previous levels for a near level. So you couldn't spend 450xp and claim to be 3rd level in a new class, you'd have to buy 1st and 2nd as well for a total of 650xp spent. Beyond this change, all other multiclassing rules remained the same. And we did point buy for stats. Then we realized how unbalanced it made things, since one player wanted to stay to on class, and another player stuck to two classes, third player wanted as many classes as they can legally get (leaving th
    via u/TimmyTheNerd
  • 16
    player taking Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, and Bard cause, and I quote, 'Charisma for the win, b es!'. We thought it was fun for a one time thing but agreed to never do it again. 45 Reply Share
    via u/TimmyTheNerd
  • 17
    • Cerulean_IsFancyBlue 1 day ago Resolving seduction as opposed charisma checks. 134 Reply Share Wyldfire2112. 1 day ago DM Deception vs Insight for a seduction with ulterior motives actually makes perfect sense. 40 Reply Share ...
    via u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue, u/Wyldefire2112
  • 18
    &Jackekal 1 day ago One of my players suggested a rule where if you rolled a negative number for initiative (like having a -2 Dex mod and rolling a 1) then that character should miss the first round of combat for reacting so slow. The table thought it was funny and we decided to add it in. That got taken back out pretty quickly when our Dex dump paladin had to sit for the first hour and a half of a combat doing nothing A 179 Reply Share
    via u/Jackekal
  • 19
    Dry-Being3108 · 1 day ago We had a rule where if you missed an attack by one you would get advantage on your next attack. Didn't go badly but needed me to remember to tell people and for them to remember the next round. 98 Reply Share Flyingsheep · 1 day ago My permanent houserule is "I am keeping track of too much stuff to keep track of your characters too, keep track of the stuff for your characters to make my life easier" 86 Reply Share
    via u/Dry-Being3108, u/Flyingsheep___
  • 20
    frozenflame101 · 1 day ago It turned out ours wasn't so much a homebrew as that our DM just didn't understand the cunning action feature. He thought that Cunning action gave you an additional bonus action, which you called a cunning action. We played an entire 1-20 campaign with that, it was probably the least broken homebrew we used but when we started the next one he did mention that he finally figured out cunning action and we would be using the proper version from now on. Action economy in 5
    via u/frozenflame101
  • 21
    Roguespiffy ⚫ 22 hr. ago Weapon speed. You'd roll initiative and then add your weapon speed on to it. Sometimes you'd have rounds where you couldn't even go. Everybody switched to darts that had a weapon speed of two and started going 3-4 times a round. DM knocked that stupid s' 't off immediately. I'm fairly certain he wasn't running it right and even then I hate it as a game concept. 25 Reply Share ...
    via u/Roguespiffy
  • 22
    Jakers93 19 hr. ago Had a DM who despised healing so tried to change long rest rules. Each player could only accumulate up to half their hit dice each day and could only use those to restore HP. Long rest only restored abilities & spell slots. We only had an artificer with Cure Wounds as he basically banned any class that could do significant healing. It resulted in the entire party being at half HP at most constantly and kept going down every combat. Every encounter was almost a tpk. It was not
    via u/Jakers93

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