D&D 5E Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Regarding Magic I do feel HP sacrifice, whether self, someone else, or both should be part of the magic system. A system where hp’s can power spells, and also help cure accrued corruption, is really appropriate for Xoth.

CapnZapp magic suggestions feel very appropriate.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Regarding Magic I do feel HP sacrifice, whether self, someone else, or both should be part of the magic system. A system where hp’s can power spells, and also help cure accrued corruption, is really appropriate for Xoth.

CapnZapp magic suggestions feel very appropriate.

Note that there are already rules for this in the Player's Guide. The Sorcery chapter (pages 40-41) notes that life force that is restored via healing spells "must be transferred or taken from somewhere else, typically via sacrifice".

The Cultist class (page 30) is built on this concept and has the Blood Healing, Blood Ritual, Triumphant Sacrifice and Steal Life abilities. Sacrifice is also relevant for the Idolatry ability.

The Druid (page 34) has a defiler-like ability that allows him to drain the life force of nearby plants in order to fuel healing, creating a wasteland in the process.

And the Warlock (page 25) "must perform a sacrifice or service on behalf of his patron, as determined by the GM" to advance a level.

Thus all the spellcasting classes feature the concept of sacrifice in different ways. While "corruption" is not a mechanic, the roleplaying potential of each should be obvious ("How far do I want to go to use these special abilities to help myself and my companions"?).

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Here's a variant for your consideration:

Deadly Critical: When you score a critical hit against an opponent, roll another d20. If you roll a natural 20 on this second roll, the opponent's hit point total is instantly reduced to zero. For player characters, this means they must start rolling death saves. For NPCs and monsters, it usually means instant death; the GM may rule that certain monsters are immune [you will not be able to insta-kill Great Cthulhu with a lucky die roll]. If you are using the rule where the opponent can sacrifice a weapon or shield to negate the critical hit, the decision must be taken before the second d20 is rolled.

This rule is simple (in the spirit of 5E), applies equally to all (so even high-level characters will feel a little worried), yet won't happen very often, and won't instakill PCs (but rather bring them to zero hit points). Also, it's fun to roll dice, and crits become more interesting.

I feel an exception for unarmed attacks from medium and smaller sized opponents should be made. Instead of falling to zero hit points and death saves, fall to zero hit-points but stable.
This then does a good job of modelling the knock out punch.

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Note that there are already rules for this in the Player's Guide. The Sorcery chapter (pages 40-41) notes that life force that is restored via healing spells "must be transferred or taken from somewhere else, typically via sacrifice".

The Cultist class (page 30) is built on this concept and has the Blood Healing, Blood Ritual, Triumphant Sacrifice and Steal Life abilities. Sacrifice is also relevant for the Idolatry ability.

The Druid (page 34) has a defiler-like ability that allows him to drain the life force of nearby plants in order to fuel healing, creating a wasteland in the process.

And the Warlock (page 25) "must perform a sacrifice or service on behalf of his patron, as determined by the GM" to advance a level.

Thus all the spellcasting classes feature the concept of sacrifice in different ways. While "corruption" is not a mechanic, the roleplaying potential of each should be obvious ("How far do I want to go to use these special abilities to help myself and my companions"?).

Thanks, sounds good. I need to thoroughly read those.

 

[xoth.publishing]

I feel an exception for unarmed attacks from medium and smaller sized opponents should be made. Instead of falling to zero hit points and death saves, fall to zero hit-points but stable.
This then does a good job of modelling the knock out punch.

No need for exceptions here. From the 5E core rules: "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable."

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

No need for exceptions here. From the 5E core rules: "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable."

Ah yes. Also something easily ruled on by the GM if killing punches aren’t appropriate to the encounter, and the pc thinks otherwise....and still allows for Conan to have the potential to punch a horse out

 

[CapnZapp]

Riffing off of the TA wound Tracker, and Exhaustion tracker, you could develop a new one specifically for the cumulative consequences of using Sorcery.

Here it becomes really important to reflect on a given rule's aim - what does the rule try to accomplish?

I would argue the goal of limiting magic use (i.e. provide an alternative to spell slots) is different from the goal of making sorcery unpredictable or dangerous.

I'm saying this because again I feel steadily increasing penalties isn't central to the S&S genre. Obviously there must be some kind of check to magic use or every spell becomes a free cantrip. My point is that switching from spell slots to a "death spiral" is something you'd do to make a game grimmer and grittier, and that's just a separate goal from sword-and-sorcifying it.

Instead I maintain the important aspect of standard D&D spellcasting that needs to change is it's clean uncontroversial use. Since it's still D&D this should ideally be accomplished without actually nerfing the casting classes relative to the fighter classes.

Therefore I'm arguing that the emphasis on sacrifice or side-effects is more central to a product like Xoth. Keeping standard spell slots is fine.

Again, I appreciate you wanting your S&S games to be grimmer or grittier and I have no problem with that. Cheers!

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not saying the campaign should end at a certain level, I'm just saying the sweet spot is below level 10. Statistics (from D&D Beyond and elsewhere) show that most campaigns tend to end before getting into the really high levels anyway... possibly because high-level D&D (and Pathfinder!) is a complex, time-consuming mess.

Better to focus on domain management, armies and battles, diplomacy, etc in such high-level campaigns, rather than dungeon-crawling.

Okay.

You don't comment on it, but I take it you realize we were discussing the impact of hit points specifically on arriving at this sweet spot. The theory being that if you still have fewer hit points at level 10, that level too might be included in the sweet spot. And to get to the point: that compressing the hit point range (as it were) might therefore be a potential candidate house-rule for inclusion in your S&S-related product, especially as a viable alternative to massive damage rules.

Thanks for your other posts, Xoth!

 

[CapnZapp]

Here's a variant for your consideration:

Deadly Critical:

Thanks. My suggestion was designed to avoid the extra die rolling (and I must confess I personally believe rules need to happen more often than once every 400 rolls for me to be able to justify including them), but otherwise accomplishes much the same aims.

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Here it becomes really important to reflect on a given rule's aim - what does the rule try to accomplish?

Yeah it’s the cumulative effect of corruption through use of sorcery, perhaps only when you don’t take the proper precautions like blood sacrifice.

The effect could take many forms, maybe premature aging etc