D&D General My Low Fantasy homebrew mods to 5th Edition

[Li Shenron]

Hard and gritty, me likes! The class and race restrictions will probably offer the opportunity to many players to actually try some more classical PC if they haven't already.

But ouch... those spellcasting times are seriously gonna hurt Do you mean to apply concentration rules while a Wizard is spending actions in multiple rounds to cast a higher level spell? I think the casting times are already harsh enough without making the Wizard subject to disruption.

Just a marketing advice here: you don't need to openly advertise that the level progression caps at 6th. Just tell your players that so far you have more or less established your house rules to work for the first 6 levels, so they should not plan their character builds beyond that point because you are not sure the game of the afterwards. Many players out there dislike games with a sort of set "finish line", even if it doesn't imply that the game will end but only their own progression. The same players probably don't realize that the majority of games don't even reach 6th level, but if you tell them there's a cap they might get a bad mood since the start.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think removing a feat as lame as Elemental Adept is, if anything, just increasing the power of PCs.

As no one was ever going to take Elemental Adept anyway... it's removal doesn't actually do anything.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, my only reaction was on the spellcasting as well. The rules effectively eliminate all magical combat because no player will take any spells of that sort. All magic will be out-of-combat. Which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing... if you want magic to seem rare but powerful, making all spells essentially like Rituals where the caster HAS to spend a period of time building up the power to cast them can work well. The only thing to note though is that it WILL change the load out of what spells will appear in the game, as your caster players will only select those spells for which time is not of the essence. So probably a lot of exploration spells, divinations, defensive spells during rest and so on.

Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with that, as it will effect a significant change in campaign style. No longer will you see Shield, Fireball, Thunderwave, etc. etc. dominate your games... more esoteric spells will come into play. Which of course does garner an important question-- if your spellcasting rules are going to effectively cut down your cleric and wizard spell lists to those spells that aren't hamstrung by the casting time requirements... why not just customize both spell lists even further? Create spell lists for both classes that only include those spells you are comfortable having in your game. That way you are assured of maintain a certain style of magic, rather than hoping you get there by making rules that nudge players in that direction. Your rules are passive-aggressively telling your players "I only want to see X, Y and Z spells in the game". Why not just be straight with them and say "Here are the spells I'm allowing in the campaign and all of them are considered Rituals and have to be cast as such."

Of course... if that was the case, then what all players should really do is just play Fighters and Rogues and then select party members can decide to take the Ritual Caster feat to bring magic into the game. That way you can REALLY curtail the amount of spellcasting, plus all PCs will at least have some combat skill for fights (since no one is using magic in them anyway.)

 

[dave2008]

Some interesting ideas that I could get behind, but we already have a set of more low fantasy rules we like. I may introduce a few of these in a future campaign.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Do you have a group lined up to try it?