Homebrew and House Rules

Dice Funk has some "house rules" that are consistently followed, where there is a deviation from the standard rules of 5th edition D&D. Generally these adjustments are in order to better suit the audio medium, speed up cumbersome aspects, and prioritize storytelling.

Dice Funk does not take place in the canonical settings for D&D, the forgotten realms. All campaigns and one-shots are created by their respective GM/DMs. The main seasons do sometimes take inspiration from various sources of D&D lore, but retain little to none of the canon.

## General

* As an audio medium, there are no "battle maps" and thus distances are general and vague, with loose positioning and aiming. There typically is no partial cover or limits to combatants in melee range on an enemy, as there are no squares or hexes in use.
	+ The cast uses Roll20 as their play arena for keeping character sheets and rolls easily available, and occasionally a GM will use a loose map so players can have a visual reference, but maps are generally of broader areas, not battle locations to scale.
* Except in specific and noted cases, ammunition, water, rations, carrying capacity, and currency are not specifically tracked. Generally there is just a consideration for what seems reasonable. In the case of money, it's noted as having a need to take more paying jobs, or if they are on track for their expenses. There are no specific denominations or costs.

## Austin's Style

Additionally, there are some other adjustments to the standard written rules of D&D 5e in the seasons run by Austin:

* Combat in Dice Funk functions on the principle that all enemies have lower HP than given in the book, but their attacks also hit harder. This is to ensure that combat encounters are both faster paced and higher stakes for the players involved. Combat does not grant experience, and completing an encounter non-violently will be as much a success as killing an opponent in terms of progression towards a level.

* Every critical roll (20 on a 20 sided die) and botch roll (a 1 on a d20) in Dice Funk has an effect on the gameplay or narrative. This means crits and botches affect skill checks, saving throws, and combat rolls, instead of just being used for critical damage and automatic hit or miss in combat encounters.

* Whenever a player character is knocked down to 0 HP, they receive a narrative/gameplay related injury if they survive their brush with death. The effects and severity of this injury are decided between the player and DM. Injuries have ranged from an aesthetic scar to loss of abilities or disadvantage on rolls like acrobatics or athletics.

* There are no long rests during a contained narrative arc of any season; however, short rests are allowed. Players do not receive a long rest until the arc is completed and they are allowed downtime for levelling up their characters. This is to require the use of resources that would otherwise require several combat encounters within each day, which is what D&D is more optimized and balanced for.

* Players are typically free to create "flavour" for their characters and weapons, using a stat block from a specific thing that already exists and just changing the appearance of it without changing the numbers behind it. This applies to player races, items and weapons, animal companions, and more.

## More on Homebrew

In addition to players being able to "flavour" their characters how they like, they can also work with the DM to use nonstandard or supplemental material from sources outside of D&D handbooks. Often these use an existing stat block or feature for the basis of the abilities, for easier creation.

While there are aggregate sites for homebrew shared around the d&d community, many of these go through revisions, or may be altered by the player or DM for use in Dice Funk, and so are not readily sourced. This has also been the case for some "UA" items released by Wizards of the Coast for play-testing that made it onto Dice Funk before their revisions and eventual release or scrapping.