Homebrew Tips

Homebrewing for the 5th Edition of the World of Darkness game lines can be difficult, especially if you are well-versed in legacy editions and their math, their setup, and other information. Due to this, we have compiled a list of tips for homebrewing for WoD5 below. This is not all-encompassing, but are general guidelines based on years of working with homebrew, figuring out the underlying dice math, and other factors of the WoD5.

Homebrew Tips

From Lumi

• Don't give extra combat dice
• Don't give extra combat damage, max +1
• Don't give more than 3 dice to specialized things, dice bonuses should be very specialized or their frequency rare.
• Aggravated damage is very valuable and mitigating it is even more valuable
• Don't devalue the importance of Hunger
• XP is a rare commodity, things that give more XP are ten times more rare
• Gate powerful abilities per night/per story (which is 1-3 sessions per story)

From ElmerG

• When designing homebrew, large numbers of dice can break the math and create unbeatable characters or situations. When there is no dice equivalence, a difference of about 7 dice can make someone mathematically unbeatable in a conflict. For non-conflict tests, dice pools of about 17 become mathematically able to beat all but the most obscene difficulties.
• Flaws exist to be used by STs and actually come up in play in meaningful ways, so a lot of old Flaws, which were minor in scope, won't translate well to WoD5 lines. For example, Flaws such as Bad Sight don't translate well as they are minor in scope and impact, and something easily mitigated.
  • Flaws should never exceed 2 dots and, when tied to a Merit, should follow the core book logic in how the dot ratings work between them. Look at Allies and Enemies for a good example of the dot rating setup.
• Anything that could simply be roleplay or a lowered stat distribution doesn't need a Flaw. For example, Vengeful or Shy as Flaws are outside of WoD5's design space.
• Merits and Flaws that modify XP costs will cause overall imbalances in character builds and should be avoided.
• Merits and Flaws that add or subtract more than 2 situational dice should be avoided.
• Merits and Flaws that modify core systems like Messy Crits or Brutal Results should be avoided as they would modify the math averages and curves.
• Merits and Flaws that are just situational refluff modifiers of existing ones (such as different takes on Looks) are superfluous and unnecessary.
• Merits and Flaws should not modify the core dice functions (such as changing the target number on the dice, or changing symbol results).
• Merits and Flaws should not add extra actions (nothing should, really) or modify the split dice pools for conflict.