D&D 5E Hardcore 5E World Ideas

Krachek · Oct 24, 2017

Zardnaar said:
I am working on a new campaign setting for a post Xanather Guide for a 2018 campaign (currently running 2E). D&D worlds often have some sort of magical catastrophic event in the distant past with perhaps the exception of FR that had the Time of Troubles after effects in 2E. Even then the effects were limited in scope. My idea is roughly that the gods have died in a magical apocalypse (Desecration Wars) and the PCs are navigating a world where survival is difficult with dead and wild magic zones all over the place. The environment has 4 main effects.

1. The shroud. I think I need a new name but this effects the entire world. Effects that restore hit points are halved regardless if it is from magic, a hit dice or the healer feat. Overnight heal rates are back to 3E's rate (1/hp level, compromise between OSR 1-3 hp and 4E+ healing rates). The shroud infuses the world although parts of the world are exempt (I'm thinking hallowed ground areas).

2. Dead magic. More or less what it says with the biggest area about the size of a US state like Colorado.

3. Wild magic. Most of the world is a wild magic effect with major cities generally being located in areas where this effect doesn't apply. While in a wild magic effect you have disadvantage on concentration roles. While magic zones will otherwise be similar to 2E and Magic of Faerun (3.0) ones using the 5E wild magic table.

4. Storms of magical energy that wash over the wild magic areas randomly inflicting 2d8 necrotic/force or radiant damage if you are caught in one. Con save for half damage (its in the air, not lightning strikes).

5. Core 4 races are the default, at least when it comes to established cultures, AD&D races exist in smaller numbers, everything else is rare . The wild magic has mutated things though so anything goes for organic races (Volos guide and 3pp races are fine). Organic being living beings no undead or construct races though (magic went boom). Probably have a new race added that is important to the events that caused the devastaiton.

6. Clerics exist but draw their powers from the power of dead gods infusing their blood, the shroud or whatever I end up calling it does that.

7. Alignment restrictions. Either AD&D ones or 3.5 ones are coming back, Druids being true neutral and rangers being good aligned though is attractive. This is mostly to return classes to ye olde roles (Rangers protectors of the wilderness, Druids serve the balance and want to fix the wild magic effects, Paladins are ye olde LG Paladins).

Who won the War? Is something or someone replacing the Gods?
What happen to cities, kingdoms, do they participate to the war? What's left of them?
Do Cleric have hope to 'raise' their god?

Eltab · Oct 24, 2017

hawkeyefan said:
I always thought that having magic be a finite source of power would be interesting.

Larry Niven, "The Magic Goes Away" (and his other Warlock stories).
"The Burning City" is a Magic Goes Away story set in Los Angeles, during the Ice Age. The sequel "The Burning Tower" travels the length of California. The novels provide an interesting mix of real and fantasy elements.

Tormyr · Oct 24, 2017

Zardnaar said:
Shroud is a working title atm, it is a global effect that reducing healing though but there may be parts of the world where healing functions normally- sacred ground, Druidic groves things like that.

I want the shroud and wild and dead magic zones on a massive scale though. THe gods are dead is not an absolute requirement although I would want a small pantheon (3-20 deities).

If the mortals found a way to detonate the gods as they walked the earth, the dead zones could be spread all over, with some being larger if more than one god was detonated in the area. The gods could have exploded when the divine gate was sealed by the mortals, cutting them off from the celestial plane and the source of their power.

One of the long running plots could be that the remaining celestials are angry and working on reopening the diving gate to reclaim dominion over the world. With that kind of story line, there is all kinds of opportunities to make things topsy-turvy. Clerics could be drawing power through cracks in the sealed Celestial Gate or from the dead gods. Warlocks could have mysterious patrons (who are actually celestials) that have them helping the celestial's plans in subtle ways. Devils could have been cursed by the celestials and driven underground while secretly keeping the celestials' plans in check. There are lots of cool options with the key conceit of your setting.

Another option for reducing healing would be to use [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] 's idea for reduced natural healing and remove ability modifiers from the amount of healing gained from spells. At some point, if it becomes too hard, the PCs can find an artifact that allows healing to be at full power.

jasper · Oct 24, 2017

Raise Dead. And similar. Bring the old Resurrection Survival roll. DC 10 con saving throw. You can only be raise as many times as your con modifier. It sucks if you have a -1 to con.

Tales and Chronicles · Oct 24, 2017

God I love dead worlds settings: they are so flavorful! What if instead of being dead, the war that warped the world left barely enough ''divine juice'' to fuel the Gods immortality and clerics, not knowing that fact, kept using divine magic until the Gods lost their divinity, being forced to the prime material plane. Now, the gods walk the world as mortals with only few powers (mid level spellcasters): some just trying to find a quiet spot to lay down and die, some hunting their own followers to stop them from draining them to death, some actively sacrificing their last drops of divine Ichor so that their clerics can cast spells to aid humanity, some actually appreciating life as a mortal and other trying every trick possible to recover their ''divine juice''. Something like ''American Gods'' if you've seen it. Now you got to decide if the clerics know about the situation of their god: it would make a good moral dilemma, much like Darksun's defiling magic but your defiling the very God you say you serve.

Also, if magic is now so dangerous, why would their still be wizard? Sorcerers I can understand because they didnt chose to become spellcasters. Imagine if every time you miscast a spell, something went boom: apprentice wizards must fail a lot before being able to cast safely even low level spells, so there's a lot of chances that few apprentice even succeed at becoming first level wizards. After a while you got to ask the question: would people actually seek to become wizard if there's 95% chance of you dying and even after you graduated, most of your actions while have a detrimental effect on you or your environment. I think that if I had a setting like this, I'd only allow sorcerer and warlocks.

Tormyr · Oct 24, 2017

jasper said:
Raise Dead. And similar. Bring the old Resurrection Survival roll. DC 10 con saving throw. You can only be raise as many times as your con modifier. It sucks if you have a -1 to con.

I rather like Mercer's resurrection rules.

https://geekandsundry.com/use-critical-roles-resurrection-rules-in-your-own-campaign/

They have escalating DCs, and the other members of the party can contribute in meaningful ways. With the reduced healing in the campaign setting, they are probably going to need all the help they can get.

Croesus · Oct 24, 2017

Eltab said:
Larry Niven, "The Magic Goes Away" (and his other Warlock stories).
"The Burning City" is a Magic Goes Away story set in Los Angeles, during the Ice Age. The sequel "The Burning Tower" travels the length of California. The novels provide an interesting mix of real and fantasy elements.

In an AD&D campaign, I used a "Warlock's Wheel" to drain all mana in the area, which really freaked out the players (their PCs were around 13th level, with lots of magic). Having to solve the adventure without spells and magic items was a challenge.

Tony Vargas · Oct 24, 2017

Zardnaar said:
Overnight heal rates are back to 3E's rate (1/hp level,

So back to it takes very healthy people (CON bonus to HD), and large-HD classes like fighters & barbarians longer to heal up than d6-HD 8 CON wizards....

Why not decide what you think is a realistic time to heal up to full, modify it for CON, and divide total hps by that to get hps/day? That way tough guys get to be somewhat tough?

Not that it matters in the face of any systematic source of magical healing, even if halved. If you have nothing to do but sit around waiting for the tough guys to heal, you can prep a whole slate of healing and lay it on 'em, then do it again...

Zardnaar said:
I did think about using the HD as your replenishment rate but that left magical healing unaffected.

You could have healing spells use HD instead of the dice specified by the spell description. Drives home that sort of 'Gods're dead, you're on your own' feel. Recovering HD becomes an issue, though, again, you could just go with dividing total HD by that hypothetical 'realistic time to heal' to get a base rate.

Zardnaar · Oct 24, 2017

Tony Vargas said:
So back to it takes very healthy people (CON bonus to HD), and large-HD classes like fighters & barbarians longer to heal up than d6-HD 8 CON wizards....

Why not decide what you think is a realistic time to heal up to full, modify it for CON, and divide total hps by that to get hps/day? That way tough guys get to be somewhat tough?

Not that it matters in the face of any systematic source of magical healing, even if halved. If you have nothing to do but sit around waiting for the tough guys to heal, you can prep a whole slate of healing and lay it on 'em, then do it again...

You could have healing spells use HD instead of the dice specified by the spell description. Drives home that sort of 'Gods're dead, you're on your own' feel. Recovering HD becomes an issue, though, again, you could just go with dividing total HD by that hypothetical 'realistic time to heal' to get a base rate.

I'll probably just eliminate it and have overnight healing tied to hit dice which you recover at the normal rate and whose effect is halved.

I want to make the game more like 3-6 encounters as well instead of the 6-8 default.

Zardnaar · Oct 24, 2017

jasper said:
Raise Dead. And similar. Bring the old Resurrection Survival roll. DC 10 con saving throw. You can only be raise as many times as your con modifier. It sucks if you have a -1 to con.

Think I will yoink this.

I'm thinking maybe some gods did survive but the desecration wars had some magical boom that made the shroud a global effect.
God/Domains

Sun god Life, Light, War
Moon goddess Arcana, Knowledge,
evil god Death, Trickery
Nature Godess, Nature, Tempest

D&D 5E Hardcore 5E World Ideas

Krachek

Hero

Eltab

Lord of the Hidden Layer

Tormyr

Adventurer

jasper

Rotten DM

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix

Tormyr

Adventurer

Croesus

Adventurer

Tony Vargas

Legend

Zardnaar

Legend

Zardnaar

Legend

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