D&D 5E

There is a lot of ground in the DM's guide. This set of notes will help players to know what variants are in and which are out as well as provide some notes on the house rules that we play by.

• Opportunity attacks happen ONLY when an enemy moves out of your reach and is made by using your "reaction". 
• They do not happen when moving about in range, they do not happen for casting spells, they do not happen for getting up from prone, they do not happen for any other reason. 

• Identify is a variant in which the PC's must have a pearl worth 100gp and an owl bear feather  in order to cast the spell. They must also experiment with the item to determine its properties. This spell only works on one all magic item's when cast and will never reveal if it is cursed. 
• Ideally an NPC would identify the groups items at some point during their eight hour day and charge the group for the pearl, feathers and time spent doing so. A mage NPC who deals in identifying magic items will have pearls and feathers on them, while the PC's may never come across such things in their travels and most shops certainly would not carry these items.

• Multi-Classing is a variant in the Players Handbook which we will not be using as the classes are front loaded and become overpowered when taking the abilities from another class. Many, many references of  multi-classing pump numbers way to high and mixing abilities generates insane numbers that are not realistic in game. Also one major difference from other editions to this one is class levels vs caster levels. In 5E they are the same as in a first level sorcerers DC's are now wild.
• Watch this video if you want to see stupid reasons why people multi-class to cheat and mess with the games rules:

• Feats are a variant, but all feats in the Players Handbook are pretty basic and are usable in game to differentiate your character from others by knowing unique abilities. Feats cannot be taken from any other source other than the Players Handbook. 
• Anything from Xanathar's Guide must be cleared first. 

CHARACTER CREATION 

Part 4

Part 4 of the process is the one I am most interested in having done correctly. Step 1/2 picking a race and class are simple, step 3/5 ability scores and equipment are just about stats and 6 just means ending the process.

Name, appearance, personality traits, alignment, ideals, bonds, flaws, and background. Are the main aspects of a d&d character and without this information filled in on your sheet you have nothing more than stats, nothing of a character. We need to know who you are, not what you are or what you carry.

Backgrounds for example talk about what your character did before becoming an adventurer and asks you to come up with why you chose to leave that behind and become one. This consists of both the stats part of the backgrounds and the story part of what you were before.

Personality traits are also very detailed, try to pick two that best describe your character as an individual not in a vague way.

Final note, is to understand the campaign world we are playing in and try to pull from it's lore, places, groups, and such. If you are an elf, then you are most likely from the snow covered region of The Frozen Reaches, with pale skin and dark hair. If you are a dwarf, then you are most likely from the desert region of Laris Cal-Vas, with bronze sun burnt skin and find discomfort in other climates such as the great city of Ashura. 

Hit points are also now rolled. Due to not doing this in game, we can max 1st - 3rd then begin rolling upon level up.