Mike Mearls Games
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Rewriting 5e
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 13:43:39 +0000 UTCA funny thing happened at Gen Con. If you've been following my writing here for a while, you night remember that I took a pass at dramatically simplifying 5e a few months ago. That project has remained in the back of my mind. While working on Cthulhu by Torchlight, I felt that my mastery of 5e had slipped badly over the years. To help rebuild it, I grabbed the 5.2 SRD and rewrote parts of it. I find that when working on a rules set, the best way for me to learn it is to take parts of it and rewrite them into my own reference document.
In doing that, I revisited the process of slimming down 5e. I started by re-writing character creation to speed things up. Today. I have the basic, initial steps of character creation.
I used these at Gen Con to run a pick up game and was very happy with the results. The rule of thumb at conventions is "Never make players create characters." Obviously some games make that possible, but with 5e that process takes 30 to 60 minutes.
I was quite happy that with my re-written rules the process took about 10 minutes. Even better, it was procedural enough that I as the DM could guide the entire, eight person group through the process. It took about 10 minutes and led to about four hours of gaming.
So, here's the process for everything but character classes. I'll start posting those next week.
(As an aside, work on Odyssey continues. Some day I should do a post about my work process. The root of it is that I find working on multiple projects really good for my net productivity. Forcing my brain into a different design context helps me come back to projects with a fresh mind. The trick is to make sure you rotate through your projects on a regular basis, rather than let stuff go fallow.)
Character Creation
Use the following steps to create a character.
Determine Abilities
There are two ways to determine your ability bonuses.
Assign Values
You set two of your abilities to +2, two to +1, one to +0, and one to –1. You can then add +1 to an ability.
Alternatively, you can allocate a total of 7 points to your abilities. Each point gives you a +1 bonus and scores start at 0. You can start with one score at –1 to gain an additional point to allocate, for a total of 8.
Random Values
Some players enjoy rolling a character’s abilities at random. Roll six d6s and allocate each die to a different ability, choosing how to allocate them or doing it at random. Use the table below to determine their abilities. Then, add +1 to an ability of your choice.
Roll: Ability Score
1: –1
2: +0
3 – 4: +1
5 – 6: +2
Species
You can pick one of the following species: dwarf, elf, halfling, or human. You gain the following benefits based on that choice. Your size is Medium, your creature type is humanoid, and your speed is 30 feet unless otherwise noted.
Dwarf, Mountain: You have darkvision with a range of 30 feet. You gain a +1 bonus to AC and are proficient with light and medium armor, and shields. You know the Dwarvish language.
Elf, Wood: Your speed is 40 feet and you gain a +1 bonus attacks. You are proficienct with light armor, longswords, short swords, and longbows. You know the Elvish language.
Gnome, Forest: Your size is Small. You gain a +1 bonus to Intelligence (maximum +5). You know the Gnomish language and can understand the language of beasts.
Halfling: Your size is Small. You gain a +1 bonus to Dexterity (maximum +5). You know the Halfling language.
Half-Elf: You gain a +1 bonus to all attacks and a +2 bonus to checks made with two skills of your choice. You know the Elvish language.
Half-Orc: You gain a +1 bonus to Strength (maximum +5). You know the Orc language.
Human: You increase your proficiency bonus by +1.
Luck
You have three luck tokens. You can spend a luck token to roll 1d6 and add the result to any d20 Test you make. You use a luck token after you learn the result of the d20 test, potentially turning a failure or miss into success or a hit. You regain one expended luck token when you finish a long rest.
Background
You have decided to embark on a life of adventure. Why grind away at a mundane career when you can risk life and limb in search of treasures hidden in monster-infested holes in the ground?
Skills
You select one of the skill packages listed below.
Burglar: Acrobatics, Investigation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Diplomat: Deception, Insight, Performance, Persuasion
Scholar: Arcana, History, Medicine, Religion
Soldier: Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine, Perception
Wanderer: Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Survival
With your DM’s permission, you can create your own skill package by picking four skills.
Languages
You know Common. Make a number of rolls equal to your Intelligence to determine additional languages you know. Reroll duplicates. At your DM’s option, you can instead pick some or all of your languages.
1d12: Language
1: Common Sign Language
2: Draconic
3 – 4: Dwarvish
5 – 6: Elvish
7: Giant
8: Gnomish
9: Goblin
10 – 11: Halfling
12: Orc
Equipment
You start with a backpack, a waterskin, three days of rations and four items chosen from the list below.
Bedroll
Holy Symbol
Pole (10 feet)
Bell
Holy Water
Rope (50 feet)
Blanket
Ink and Quill
Sack
Chalk (3 pieces)
Iron Spikes (12)
Shovel
Crowbar
Lantern
Signal Whistle
Grappling Hook
Mirror, Handheld
String (30 feet)
Hammer
Oil Flask (3)
Tinderbox
Healer’s Kit
Parchment (12 sheets)
Torches (6)
Comments
Joseph Holsapple
This is good. I like the stat generation, I may try it in place of my own house rule, but getting rid of ability scores is definitely the way to go (as much as it pains me to not roll 3d6!). I look forward to seeing how you've simplified the classes!
Mike Mearls
The wild thing is that it makes writing rules so much easier. You can just say, "Add your Intelligence to this roll," and so on. It has a big knock on effect that reduces bloat across the board.
Nick Enquist
I do some pro GM work for a local company and I led a character creation panel. We had a lot of kids there and an 8 year old came in late with her mom. So I worked with her to make her character in less than 30 minutes. (Of course she wanted to play a Wizard, so that made things more complicated). When we got to ability scores she said “why are there two numbers? Wouldn’t it make more sense if there was just one?” And it took me all of my effort not to shout “you would think so wouldn’t you?!” Thanks for sharing these Mike! Gonna use them for my next game.
