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

[ZeroSum]

To be frank, I'd say most 5e classes would need some tweaking to make them really fit a pure sword and sorcery setting as opposed to the more traditional high fantasy D&D world. But then again I'll be translating any future Xoth publications to Barbarians of Lemuria so it's not that important to me.

 

[ZeroSum]

Also, I would like to request that Crom spare you any and all Dooms he may have had in store for you in recognition of the fact that new Xoth stuff is on the way.

 

[Yaarel]

Do you have an answer to Xoth's question: If the Bard is reskinned as the Shaman, what would you reskin the Druid as?

I mean, Xoth obviously prefers to "activate" both classes.

While I agree Bard > Shaman makes a certain sense, the advantage of Bard > Courtier (which certainly makes sense as well) is that you can have a role for the Druid too (even if I agree the Shaman isn't a perfect fit for a D&D Druid).

Note, the Xoth pdf says there is no Bard class in the setting, and the Druid serves as a shaman. In this case, drop the Druid and use the Bard instead for the shaman. College of Lore is a decent choice of a Bard for a wiseone of a ‘Savage’ or ‘Nomadic’ indigenous community.



Keep in mind, the 5e Bard is a full caster and might be too magical for most kinds of courtiers. The Xoth pdf creates a new semi-magic class called a Courtier, including the Seducer subclass, that seems to me a reasonable amount of magic for this kind of character concept.

If there is some kind of powerfully magical leader or courtier, yeah, use a Bard here too. The College of Whispers seems great for ‘Decadent’, and a maybe a College of Swords for ‘Civilized’.



With regard to the Druid, reskin it as a kind of courtly alchemist in an ‘Enlightened’ technologically sophisticated culture. It can make sense that a powerful noble of a powerful city-state, would patron someone who knows the secrets of a flashy magic. And this courtly Druid might have apprentices who go on errands (to find ingredients, uncover magical secrets, test magical skills, or so on), who might be player characters. These Druids would be rare, but they would know who each other are.

There is no Wizard or Sorcerer. So the Druid and the Warlock are the two ‘high magic’ classes of the urbanized cultures. It can be interesting if their flavors contrast each other.

This is where the Warlock class fits in:
"Magic is generally feared, and most magicians are associated with dark curses, evil gods and unbearable secrets which «Man Was Not Meant To Know»."

This is where the Druid class can fit in:
"(but not all)"

The Druid can be more in tune with the processes of nature, perhaps even in a protoscientific way, whereas the Warlock is more in violation of nature.

In any case, this is true for both Warlock and Druid:
"The select few who are able to use magic and cast spells guard their secrets jealously and attempt to use it to their advantage, often to the detriment of others, and sometimes also to themselves."

 

[xoth.publishing]

the Druid will have more elemental magic − fire, lightning, stone, metal, water. This actually makes the Druid less like a shaman and more like an alchemist (whether a European, Arabian, or Chinese alchemist).

I'm not convinced that the actual druid spell list ( Druid Spells - 5th Edition SRD ) supports this viewpoint. Apart from a few fire-related spells such as flame blade, flaming sphere, etc. (which the GM is free to ban under the general rule against "artillery spells" if he feels they are too flashy, although I would not personally do that), the druid spells are mostly nature-related (dealing with animals, plants, weather), so that fits a shaman very well.

I don't see what pass without trace, call lightning, blight, insect plague, etc, etc have to do with alchemy, and even less with a "courtly, urbanized alchemist" ?

 

[FXR]

Dear Xoth,

I've been a long-time fans of your products, having bought both XP1 and XP2. They all inspired to some extant my own S&S setting.

So here are my comments about some of the rules featured in your 5e edition guide.

On general

I humbly suggest you read again the 5e rules. Some of your rules seem to be based on how 3e &D worked and not on how 5e's actual rules, which are quite different.

Instant Death.

I would do away with this rule, which add nothing to the game and can actually goes against some of the usual themes of S&S.

The 5e rules already state that the GM decide if an NPC that hit 0 hp or lower dies or can survive. So no rule is necessary for that. As for PCs, many S&S protagonists take quite a beating and come back to life afterwards, which, in the context of D&D 5e, mean that they succeeded on their death saving throws.

You should replace it with the optional Massive Damage rule in the DM Guide.

Healing

Characters heal fast in S&S. To model this and not mess with the duration of short and long rests), I suggest that creatures who use a hit dice should regain the maximum value of the hit dice + their Con modifier.

Don't forget that hit points are not really meat points, but " a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck" (see PHB), which S&S recover quite fast.

Races

I would keep the word which fits the historical context of the birth of S&S. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, races was often used as a synonym of "people of a certain ancestry" and didn't refer to skin color.

Cultures

I would replace the bow-legged disadvantage from the nomadic cultures. In many real nomadic cultures, which some inspired Xoth's races, people actually walked a lot.

Isn't there some overlap between Savage and Nomadic?

Classes

I don't see the Conqueror as necessary. The Purple Dragon Knight and a feat can attain the same result.

Weapons

The rapier in a S&S iron age setting? really?

D&D 5e use very small modifiers. A steel weapon should count as a magical weapon, not a +1 magical weapon. Unlike other editions, 5e doesn't tie the numeral bonus of a magic item to résistances and immunities.

I'll try to give additional comments when I get the time.

 

[xoth.publishing]

I've been a long-time fans of your products, having bought both XP1 and XP2. They all inspired to some extant my own S&S setting.

Thanks!

I humbly suggest you read again the 5e rules. Some of your rules seem to be based on how 3e &D worked and not on how 5e's actual rules, which are quite different.

Sure, the book was originally written for 3E/Pathfinder so there may still be some Pathfinder leftovers that need to be excised. That said, none of your comments below seem to indicate any actual violations of 5E rules as such, they seem more to be suggestions as to how you would handle things differently?

Instant Death:

I would do away with this rule, which add nothing to the game and can actually goes against some of the usual themes of S&S.

This has been discussed before in this thread, and the text has been revised to make it clear that this is indeed an optional rule and not assumed by default.

Characters heal fast in S&S. To model this and not mess with the duration of short and long rests), I suggest that creatures who use a hit dice should regain the maximum value of the hit dice + their Con modifier.

The Player's Guide states that the 5E healing should remain unchanged, because they already work well for S&S gaming with hit dice being used to heal during short rests. You as the GM can certainly boost that even more by maxing out the hit dice healing. A house rule I'm using myself is that a long rest will recover all spent hit dice (not just half as per the core rules), this is done both to reduce bookkeeping and to accelerate healing.

I would replace the bow-legged disadvantage from the nomadic cultures. In many real nomadic cultures, which some inspired Xoth's races, people actually walked a lot.

Isn't there some overlap between Savage and Nomadic?

The description of the Nomadic culture underscores how animals are important to the nomads, so these are assumed to be pastoral nomads who own livestock and are nomadic because they move around with their animals. For the purposes of the game, most are assumed to be mounted (on horses, camels, donkeys, zebras, giant lizards, whatever).

Hunter-gatherers (on foot) can also be nomadic, of course, but these would more likely use the Savage archetype rather than the Nomadic archetype.

Of course, nothing prevents a house rule from giving a different disadvantage to the Nomadic archetype.

I don't see the Conqueror as necessary. The Purple Dragon Knight and a feat can attain the same result.

Perhaps, but the Purple Dragon Knight is a fighter subtype from a Forgotten Realms supplement. It wouldn't be very helpful or appropriate for the Player's Guide to the World of Xoth to just say "use the Purple Dragon Knight and add a feat..."

The rapier in a S&S iron age setting? really?

That is a leftover from the bard, it will be removed from the text. Thanks for pointing that out.

D&D 5e use very small modifiers. A steel weapon should count as a magical weapon, not a +1 magical weapon. Unlike other editions, 5e doesn't tie the numeral bonus of a magic item to résistances and immunities.

I like the idea of "basic" steel weapons being equivalent to magic items without any bonuses. That means that special steel weapons (ie steel blades from Elder Kuth and other lost empires) could give the +1 bonus. Text will be revised.

 

[CapnZapp]

This has been discussed before in this thread, and the text has been revised to make it clear that this is indeed an optional rule and not assumed by default.

Add my vote to the notion that the actual improvement comes from removing the instant rule altogether, as opposed to merely making it optional. After all - any material in a specialist player's guide like comes with an inherent recommendation (why otherwise be there), and S&S isn't really gritty in the WFRP sense (at least not for the heroes).

 

[ZeroSum]

Odd nitpick: is there a reason the Fertility Charm spell doesn't give the 5e equivalent of the Endurance Feat like the PF version did? The idea of adventurers having stuff like this cast on them for reasons completely unrelated to the intended purpose just tickles my fancy.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Odd nitpick: is there a reason the Fertility Charm spell doesn't give the 5e equivalent of the Endurance Feat like the PF version did?

No reason other than there not really being a direct 5E equivalent, and in the interest of simplifying the rules in the spirit of 5E. You could houserule it back in by giving advantage to relevant ability checks?

 

[ZeroSum]

You could houserule it back in by giving advantage to relevant ability checks?

Sounds good.