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

[xoth.publishing]

(Removed double posting.)

 

[xoth.publishing]

Just as a ultra-quick reminder, let me bring up a few points - trying to focus on things brought up by others, not merely by me.

You still include the advice about removing alignment despite being told many times that from the perspective of a 5E gamer it comes across as simply outdated and unnecessary. Please trust your audience: the best approach is to remove it altogether; 5E alignment ALREADY is where S&S needs it to be.

Do you really think that "5E alignment is where S&S needs it to be" ? Really? The 5E core rules (Alignment - 5th Edition SRD) lists the 9 alignments with very specific traits, and then goes on to talk about "races [with] strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods (...) and are thus inclined toward evil"... none of that makes any sense for me in a S&S setting. It's explained in the Player's Guide why I think this.

You're telling me to remove the whole section on alignment, I disagree. There may be new players, unfamiliar with S&S, that actually find it useful to be told that "A common high fantasy concept, that of inherently evil races (such as orcs and drow) doesn’t make much sense in the mainly humanocentric World of Xoth." And GMs may want to know why NPCs don't have any LG/CG/LE/whatever alignment listed in the stat blocks. This section is still necessary.

Instant Death: please remove the rule altogether. As FXR wrote: "it adds nothing to the game and actually goes against some of the usual themes of S&S".

Instant Death is a rule from the 5E core rules (Damage and Healing - 5th Edition SRD). I have suggested (as an optional rule!) a slight tweak that changes the threshold from (negative hit points) to (negative Con + level). The effect should be to make things slightly more deadly for higher-level characters. How you or any others can feel that this tweak "goes against some of the usual themes of S&S" is beyond me...

More alarmingly, responding "it has been discussed before in this thread; it has been made clear the rule is optional" completely misses the point. Please don't miss the point!

I'm afraid I'm missing the point because I don't see how you can get so worked up about a minor tweak that can easily be ignored. It's not like this is the defining feature of the whole Player's Guide...

Wounds Heal Quickly: About the only reason to even have this section, is because you have had it in your rules for other game systems. But since it now amounts to exactly nothing, the natural thing is to remove it. (You're saying natural healing should be accelerated, but that assumes acceleration from a previous-edition baseline. You then say there's no need for special rules. All of this reveal an author still writing from a point of view that isn't 5E)

I agree that because there is no need to change any rules, the whole section is a bit pointless. Except this chapter is also, as mentioned above, about educating players and GMs new to S&S. So I don't think it hurts to have some text here to explain that the S&S genre is typically not about spending weeks to see your wounds heal. I think I mentioned before in this thread that a house rule I use personally is that a long rest restores ALL hit dice (not just half as per the core rules), because it seems uncessarily fiddly to keep track of that. So I might throw that in there just to have some actual rules crunch in that section. Although I'm sure some might protest against that too, just for the sake of argument.

In any case, I don't agree that having a section without crunch "reveals an author still writing from a point of view that isn't 5E".

Treasure Should Be Spent: I see you have responded here, removing the decidedly Pathfindery xp and gold amounts, and for that you deserve acknowledgement. Kudos!

Actually, as far as I can remember the 5E version of the Player's Guide never had those rules for spending gold to upgrade abilities. I think you must have mixed it up with the Pathfinder version. But anyway, at least we are in agreement here!

I still think it would be more natural to first choose Culture, then Race (since your options for race are informed by your culture). There should totally be a cross-reference list "which races have Nomad members"? More importantly, it would put the emphasis on Culture. After all, whether you're Jairanian or, I dunno, Khazrajite matters much less (for everybody else than yourself) than the fact you're a Nomad. Everyone not from either of those two nations/areas likely won't know the difference unless the adventure is set in that particular corner of the world, they would just see a Nomad.

This is a good point, and I like the idea. To be honest, the required work to reformat the chapters weighs more against this than any resistance to the idea itself. But I haven't ruled it out.

Just a final note to say I won't regurgitate our discussions on gender politics. I should also say I haven't looked at your class design. I see people say great things about your Cultist class!

Thanks, I'm pretty happy about how the Cultist turned out myself. Looking forward to more feedback if you get to reviewing the Classes chapter.

 

[FXR]

You're telling me to remove the whole section on alignment, I disagree. There may be new players, unfamiliar with S&S, that actually find it useful to be told that "A common high fantasy concept, that of inherently evil races (such as orcs and drow) doesn’t make much sense in the mainly humanocentric World of Xoth." And GMs may want to know why NPCs don't have any LG/CG/LE/whatever alignment listed in the stat blocks. This section is still necessary.

Your design decision to throw out alignment seems right to me. I did the same with my own S&S setting. However, the explanation given does not strike me as convincing or useful. All D&D 5e characters are defined by their motivations, ethics, bias and ambitions, regardless of their alignement. Also, unlike alignment, these traits have a direct impact on the gameplay as they are used to award inspiration.

I would suggest an alternate reason to not use alignment. Alignement makes sense when there is a huge metaphysical conflict: Law vs. Chaos, Good vs. Evil. Xoth doesn't feature such a conflict, so alignement is not used.

Also, the following paragraph is confusing:

That said, there are certain supernatural creatures and monsters, such as demonic outsiders and most undead, whose alignments can be labeled as «cosmic evil» (CE). A protection from evil and good spell works against these kinds of monsters and certain other types, as noted in the spell description.

Protection from Evil and Good works against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. Despite its name, it has nothing to do with evil or alignement. It works just as well on a fire elemental that on an demon prince, a cute pixie or a mindless zombie.

Also, since you don't use alignement, what's the purpose of listing every creature as unaligned?

 

[CapnZapp]

Do you really think that "5E alignment is where S&S needs it to be" ? Really? The 5E core rules (Alignment - 5th Edition SRD) lists the 9 alignments with very specific traits, and then goes on to talk about "races [with] strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods (...) and are thus inclined toward evil"... none of that makes any sense for me in a S&S setting. It's explained in the Player's Guide why I think this.

First off, thank you for your well-reasoned reply.

I might come off strong, but that's because I care.

For instance, my immediate impulse to reading this would be "this sounds like someone just reading the PHB, not playing the game". But I won't write that. Instead I will explain that every practical consideration of alignment that is anathema to good S&S:y gaming has been removed.

It was there in 3E. It no longer is there in 5E. You can't cast Detect Evil in order to just kill the evulz. Only outsiders (demons etc) register on detect spells, and just maybe high-level clerics if your GM wants to*. Problematic spells are generally gone, or much higher level. Especially spells that are problematic from a S&S POV. (And no, for this purpose I'm not including area damage spells )
*) At extreme levels of corruption and decadence, you could do worse than changing the (N)PC's type to outsider, just to emphasize how far removed from humanity the character has strayed...

So while yes the introduction of the PHB still discusses alignment, there's a world of difference as to what it means in actual play.

What it means in actual play is that every reservation you rightfully had in this section of your book is gone, taken care of, no longer a problem. 5th Edition already plays like a S&S:er wants alignment to play.

You're telling me to remove the whole section on alignment, I disagree. There may be new players, unfamiliar with S&S, that actually find it useful to be told that "A common high fantasy concept, that of inherently evil races (such as orcs and drow) doesn’t make much sense in the mainly humanocentric World of Xoth." And GMs may want to know why NPCs don't have any LG/CG/LE/whatever alignment listed in the stat blocks. This section is still necessary.

Well, a much more 5E:y approach would be to say nothing, and to feature alignment on monsters normally.

Why? Because we're trying to tell you 5E alignment doesn't mean what you think it means. There's no need to explain why NPCs don't have alignment listed, because it's okay to give them an alignment. All the bad (non-trope:y) things you're associating with alignment are things you no longer can pull off.

A demon can be detected by divination magic, but not because it's evil, but because it's an outsider. There's no spell that protect against alignment. No, really - go check out Protection from Good and Evil and really read up what the spell does. There's no "good damage" like in Pathfinder that deals extra damage to Evil creatures.

I understand perfectly where you're coming from Xoth. From an AD&D or d20 perspective, your reservations are fully and completely justifiable. But 5E is a different game, trust me.

It's time to fully immerse your document with 5E sensibilities, Xoth. In other words, it's time to lay down your reservations against alignment, since they come off as quaint as best to a 5E gamer.

Instant Death is a rule from the 5E core rules (Damage and Healing - 5th Edition SRD). I have suggested (as an optional rule!) a slight tweak that changes the threshold from (negative hit points) to (negative Con + level). The effect should be to make things slightly more deadly for higher-level characters. How you or any others can feel that this tweak "goes against some of the usual themes of S&S" is beyond me...

The core rules variant of Instant Death has some impact at low level. A little, not much. At higher levels, it has absolutely zero impact. Trust me, things do not become slightly more deadly for higher-level characters, because higher-level characters never interact with Instant Death.

But more importantly, it makes heroes vulnerable for the wrong reasons. It means (at least at low level) that some random roll could kill you. It means your last hit points are worth less than your first hit points. (Being at only 9 hp is always worse than being at 29 hp obviously; but with Instant Death there's an extra reason to not heroically press on when you're low on hp). The only effect this has is making heroes cautious and trepidatious. Exactly what you don't want S&S heroes to be!

I'm afraid I'm missing the point because I don't see how you can get so worked up about a minor tweak that can easily be ignored. It's not like this is the defining feature of the whole Player's Guide...

The reason I'm getting "worked up" is because...:

- "You should probably delete the section on Instant Death, it doesn't work toward S&S tropes. Having it means an implicit recommendation."
Xoth: - "Okay, I'll make it optional".
- "But having it at all means you implicitly recommend Instant Death, when you should do the opposite. If anything you should recommend against Instant Death. But probably just easier to drop it altogether".
Xoth: - "I did made it optional."
- "You're not getting the point. The feedback is don't have it at all, since even an optional variant means making an implicit recommendation, and no version of Instant Death feels S&S:y"
Xoth: - "Why are you getting worked up?"

Because at no point during this comical double monologue do I get the feeling you have received and parsed our message!

I agree that because there is no need to change any rules, the whole section is a bit pointless. Except this chapter is also, as mentioned above, about educating players and GMs new to S&S. So I don't think it hurts to have some text here to explain that the S&S genre is typically not about spending weeks to see your wounds heal.

That's fine.

I would still replace

​

"To make up for the scarcity of healing spells and restorative magic, the natural healing rate should be accelerated in a sword and sorcery setting.​

Since the fifth edition standard rules already include the concept of short rests, which allow all characters to heal quickly by the use of hit dice, and long rests which restore all hit points, there is no need for any special rules for healing in the World of Xoth."​

​

with simply

​

"The default rules of 5th Edition work perfectly for the World of Xoth."​

​

I think I mentioned before in this thread that a house rule I use personally is that a long rest restores ALL hit dice (not just half as per the core rules), because it seems uncessarily fiddly to keep track of that. So I might throw that in there just to have some actual rules crunch in that section. Although I'm sure some might protest against that too, just for the sake of argument.

No need to get passive-agressive. You're a ttrpg publisher, I'm sure you have thick skin.

I honestly don't see why you would add rules bloat just to justify a section. So why not simply recognize this "Wounds Heal Quickly" is a darling that could be killed, and move the nice quote elsewhere

In any case, I don't agree that having a section without crunch "reveals an author still writing from a point of view that isn't 5E".

Never said that. I specifically meant what is quoted above.

Actually, as far as I can remember the 5E version of the Player's Guide never had those rules for spending gold to upgrade abilities. I think you must have mixed it up with the Pathfinder version. But anyway, at least we are in agreement here!

Okay Point made.

This is a good point, and I like the idea. To be honest, the required work to reformat the chapters weighs more against this than any resistance to the idea itself. But I haven't ruled it out.

Now there's an argument I buy completely!

Since I cannot ask for more than "I haven't ruled it out", that's the end of me badgering you about Culture!

Thanks, I'm pretty happy about how the Cultist turned out myself. Looking forward to more feedback if you get to reviewing the Classes chapter.

I just might. Busy with PF2 at the mo', though.

Regards

 

[xoth.publishing]

Your design decision to throw out alignment seems right to me. I did the same with my own S&S setting. However, the explanation given does not strike me as convincing or useful. All D&D 5e characters are defined by their motivations, ethics, bias and ambitions, regardless of their alignement. Also, unlike alignment, these traits have a direct impact on the gameplay as they are used to award inspiration.

I would suggest an alternate reason to not use alignment. Alignement makes sense when there is a huge metaphysical conflict: Law vs. Chaos, Good vs. Evil. Xoth doesn't feature such a conflict, so alignement is not used.

I agree, and that very reason is already in the Player's Guide. The alignment section already contains the following text: "the sword and sorcery genre (...) differs from high fantasy in that there is no delicate balance between good and evil" and "note that while cosmic evil may exist, there is no such thing as «cosmic good». This is one of the major differences between high fantasy, where some sort of balance of power between good and evil usually exists, and sword and sorcery worlds".

Also, the following paragraph is confusing:

Protection from Evil and Good works against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. Despite its name, it has nothing to do with evil or alignement. It works just as well on a fire elemental that on an demon prince, a cute pixie or a mindless zombie.

Not sure where you are quoting from, but version 1.6 (which hasn't changed for the last several months) contains the following text: "...there are certain supernatural creatures and monsters, such as demonic outsiders and most undead, whose alignments can be labeled as «cosmic evil» (CE). A protection from evil and good spell works against these kinds of monsters and certain other types, as noted in the spell description."

So the spell works as described in the rules, plus if you have a creature that's not already one of the types listed in the spell description, but it has the "Cosmic Evil" alignment, that is affected by the spell as well.

Also, since you don't use alignement, what's the purpose of listing every creature as unaligned?

From the text: "to retain compatibility with the standard 5E statblocks, the alignment entry is included, but all characters are simply listed as «unaligned» ".

 

[xoth.publishing]

First off, thank you for your well-reasoned reply.

I might come off strong, but that's because I care.

Fair enough. We're having a civil and on-topic discussion here, isn't that what these messageboards are for?

For instance, my immediate impulse to reading this would be "this sounds like someone just reading the PHB, not playing the game". But I won't write that. Instead I will explain that every practical consideration of alignment that is anathema to good S&S:y gaming has been removed.

So while yes the introduction of the PHB still discusses alignment, there's a world of difference as to what it means in actual play.

What it means in actual play is that every reservation you rightfully had in this section of your book is gone, taken care of, no longer a problem. 5th Edition already plays like a S&S:er wants alignment to play.

So there are two dimensions to this alignment thing in the standard 5E rules: The "fluff", so to speak, which tells us what the nine alignments mean, etc., and the "crunch", which are the mechanical effects that alignment has.

As you've pointed out, 5E has removed all the crunch we didn't like about alignment. No more clowning around with "detect evil" etc etc. This is fine, excellent, yet another reason why 5E is a good system for S&S out of the box.

But you then say I don't need to remove alignment because the crunch has been fixed. I say that I still need to explicitly remove the "fluff" of alignment, too. I don't want a player to say "So I'm this warrior from Azimba and I'm lawful good". I want him to say "So I'm this warrior from Azimba and I'm loyal to my king because he gave my family favors, and I'm out to take revenge on the slavers who kidnapped my wife". See how that's much more interesting? I don't want the words "lawful good", "chaotic good", etc to even be in the vocabulary of the game I'm playing. It has no use. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. So "out with alignment".

It's time to fully immerse your document with 5E sensibilities, Xoth. In other words, it's time to lay down your reservations against alignment, since they come off as quaint as best to a 5E gamer.

Again, 5E sensibly fixed the crunch of alignment. I still have reservations against the fluff of alignment, so it needs to go.

Trust me, things do not become slightly more deadly for higher-level characters, because higher-level characters never interact with Instant Death.

But more importantly, it makes heroes vulnerable for the wrong reasons. It means (at least at low level) that some random roll could kill you. It means your last hit points are worth less than your first hit points. (Being at only 9 hp is always worse than being at 29 hp obviously; but with Instant Death there's an extra reason to not heroically press on when you're low on hp). The only effect this has is making heroes cautious and trepidatious. Exactly what you don't want S&S heroes to be!

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? High-level characters never interact with Instant Death, yet they become afraid of entering combat if the rule is tweaked slightly?

The section heading is called "Combat Is Deadly" and if it makes the "heroes" less secure about themselves I believe the rules tweak has worked as intended.

I would still replace

​

"To make up for the scarcity of healing spells and restorative magic, the natural healing rate should be accelerated in a sword and sorcery setting.​

Since the fifth edition standard rules already include the concept of short rests, which allow all characters to heal quickly by the use of hit dice, and long rests which restore all hit points, there is no need for any special rules for healing in the World of Xoth."​

​

with simply

​

"The default rules of 5th Edition work perfectly for the World of Xoth."​

​

OK, now you are just nitpicking on the phrasing, just like an editor would.

No need to get passive-agressive. You're a ttrpg publisher, I'm sure you have thick skin.

I sure do!

All right, gotta run, but thanks again for all the feedback so far!

 

[FXR]

Not sure where you are quoting from, but version 1.6 (which hasn't changed for the last several months) contains the following text: "...there are certain supernatural creatures and monsters, such as demonic outsiders and most undead, whose alignments can be labeled as «cosmic evil» (CE). A protection from evil and good spell works against these kinds of monsters and certain other types, as noted in the spell description."

So the spell works as described in the rules, plus if you have a creature that's not already one of the types listed in the spell description, but it has the "Cosmic Evil" alignment, that is affected by the spell as well.

I remember reading this but I felt it was more confusing than helpful. If alignement is not used, what's the mechanical purpose of labeling some creatures as cosmic-evil aligned? Does Xoth feature a particular creature which would not normally be affected by the Protection from Evil and Good spell but should be? I bought XP1 and XP2 and I don't remember these adventure modules featuring such a creature.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Does Xoth feature a particular creature which would not normally be affected by the Protection from Evil and Good spell but should be? I bought XP1 and XP2 and I don't remember these adventure modules featuring such a creature.

This would admittedly be rare, and does not feature in any of the published books. But let's say you wanted to use a roper, which by the 5E standard rules is classified as a "monstrosity", but have this be more of a Lovecraftian alien being from beyond the stars, you could designate this as a "cosmic evil monstrosity" and the Protection from Evil and Good (aka The Sign of Xoth, see page 41 of the Player's Guide) would work against that creature even though it's technically not an aberration, fiend, etc.

 

[CapnZapp]

This would admittedly be rare, and does not feature in any of the published books. But let's say you wanted to use a roper, which by the 5E standard rules is classified as a "monstrosity", but have this be more of a Lovecraftian alien being from beyond the stars, you could designate this as a "cosmic evil monstrosity" and the Protection from Evil and Good (aka The Sign of Xoth, see page 41 of the Player's Guide) would work against that creature even though it's technically not an aberration, fiend, etc.

Again, with respect, an instance of not truly embracing 5E, like the difference between a foreigner speaking English really well, and a native.

A conversion product that is truly brought up to par with 5E sensibilities retains alignment, since it it no longer anything tangible in-game: it is truly only the role-playing crutch it was originally conceived as. (Don't mistake this for me actually defending alignment! I still think it is a crude and blunt tool. Here I am merely arguing for the line "actually, with 5E you don't need to remove alignment from a S&S setting any longer")

Instead, the straight-forward approach, that truly works within a 5e context, here would be to feature a Roper whose type has simply been changed to aberration or fiend, since "cosmic evil monstrosity" is precisely what those two terms are made to be used for!

There is no need to invent a new game term when 5E already provides the tools you need, or your conversion product comes off as "non-native", as it were.

Yes, the difference might be considered subtle. But we're not providing feedback because your product is a broken mess that needs fixing. We're providing feedback to polish off those few remaining stains from the sparkling jewel you have produced!

 

[doghead]

I haven't read the whole book in detail, but this caught my eye while scanning through the character generation system.

Step 2—Pick Your Race: Next, pick your character’s race.

It made me laugh. I thought that it was a meta-game joke at first. Then I realised that it was just how the Summmary points were written. I liked it better as a meta-game joke.

thotd