House Rules

Below is a collection of the House Rules used within Games that I run.

Health
When rolling for health on a level up, you may roll or take the average. If you roll a 1 or a 2 you can always reroll. When given a re-roll, you may decide to take the average instead of rerolling.

Outside of dungeons, a Long Rest is a week (5 Days) and a short rest is 8 Hours. Inside dungeons or in other locations the DM determines to apply, Long Rests shorten to 8 Hours and Short Rests become 1 hour. If reduced to 0 hit points and a lasting injury is sustained, it is not removed after completing a shorter duration Long Rest and can only be resolved after taking a week long Long Rest. Additionally, Long Rests and Short Rests cannot be taken in the Wilderness outside of a Haven, where a Haven is any location the party is safe from being ambushed — Shallow Caves, Towns, Forts, Shrines, etc — and meets the requirements of providing Shelter, Warmth, Security, and Comfort. Locations where a night watch requires multiple people does not meet the security requirement.

Carry Capacity
Carry capacity is tracked via a simplified system, the " Is this Reasonable™ " method. If it is reasonable, you're fine. If it is unreasonable, you are encumbered or unable to carry it depending on how far past reasonable it is. Bulky items, such as chests or barrels, are tracked as normal and limited to your no more than your strength modifier.


Supplies
Spells components with a gold cost are not required to cast spells, however you must have the gold amount on you to use as a replacement. The gold dissapears as would the expended spell component. You may use the component as normal if you wish.

Supplies and Ammo are tracked as normal. In towns, it is assumed player characters stop to resupply right before leaving unless leaving hastily, just keep track of the gold cost and supplies/rations had. When leaving town, 10GP gets you 10 Days of Rations and restocks your other supplies of their standard variant items(Water Skins, Component Pouches, quivers).


Equipping Items
In terms of equipping items, the following are the "slots" items can be worn in depending on the type of item:

Potions
Potions are utilized mainly via consuming them through a bonus action. Using them in this way grants the traditional roll for the result. If you instead drink the potion via an action, you gain the maximum result possible.

Languages are dived more in depth on their own pages, or within the Societies of the Aether page. The language families and the languages that comprise them are listed below. Some languages are not listed, and those languages are considered are unfamiliar to everyone except some scholars due to them being ancient and being not known as spoken among any populations.

Not Knowing a language to fluency does not prevent you from being able to communicate with someone, it just makes it more difficult and increases the likelihood of a misunderstanding occuring.

Prestige is a marker of how well known characters are within the world, and not only does a Party have a Prestige, each character within the party also has their own prestige. Higher prestige allows you to wield your renown to your advantage and receive favors from NPCs, audiences with Nobles, or secure passage on filled out vessels and caravans. It can be increased by completing quests and committing good deeds, obtaining strongholds and forming businesses, or my felling great monsters. The types of favors one is able to get another character to do for them is effected by their prestige and how well that NPC knows them.

Each character starts with a prestige of 1, increasing by 1 at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels.

I Know a Guy
Under prestige also falls the "I Know a Guy" rule. While not always applicable due to player backstory or the current location a campaign has moved to, if the party is stuck a player can say that "They Know a guy", and describe to the DM who they know and how they know them. Through this, their argument as to how they know a guy is judged by the DM and if reasonable, the DM can confirm if they do know a guy. A player who claims to know a guy typically has not interacted with said character in some time, and as such they may demand a favor for their help or may not even be friendly to them anymore (determined via straight charisma check).

Initiative
A Natural 20 on an Initiative roll allows you to choose in the initiative order where you go relative to your party members.


Flanking
Flanking within games I run is adding your proficiency an additional time to your attack roll, allowing it to scale with player level and allowing other sources of advantage to remain valuable.


Massive Damage
Massive Damage causes 3 levels of exhaustion and triggers a lingering injury rather than instant death on failure of the Con Save. This exhaustion can only be removed via long rest at a Haven or safe location.


Ammo
Ammo is assumed to be gathered off the ground at the end of each fight unless you dictate doing something else first; magic ammo loses its magic properties and any ammo that a Natural 1 was rolled on is considered broken and unstable, but everything else can be re-added to your inventory as its non-magical base at the end of combat.


Exhaustion
Any exhaustion gained during an encounter does not take effect until after that encounter has concluded (Adrenaline from fights and all that).


Lingering Injuries
Lingering injuries occur when you are knocked to 0 Hit Points in a combat, are dealt damage while unconscious, or receive massive damage. Linguring Injuries can only be recovered by spending considerable time in a Haven recovering or by being healed by higher level healing spells such as Regenerate or Greater Restoration (depending on injury).