Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9499567" data-attributes="member: 6677017">You don't need to do anything too extreme, but you do need to be careful.All of the following can work together without feeling like you are depriving players of too much of what they may want.Player Side:1) Slower level progression. Potentially much slower.2) Curated subclass and species options. Anything in the 2014 PHB is probably fine, but stuff can get complicated outside of it.3) Limit or eliminate feats.All of these keep things more manageable by reducing the amount of things the PCs can do without depriving them of expected mathematical power or features for their level.DM side:4) Almost always use lots of foes if a fight is supposed to be at all challenging. Seriously, even if it's a creature with Legendary Actions try to find a way to justify minions. The 5e math doesn't support olo foes well. Either they are defensively satisfying but offensively strong enough to one-shot PCs and risk a TPK, or they are defensively satisfying but the party doesn't expend many resources to destroy them.Use multiple optional rules that tweak but don't completely changer how things work like:5) Slow natural healing: no hp on long rests so you have to spend HD. Healer's kit dependency sounds cool, but in practicebit might be more trouble than it's worth.6) Harder magic identification. More of a feel than power thing.7) Using encumbrance rather than just carrying capacity--which might be the hardest sell to players!None of those require house rules except for slower progression, and none of them fundamentally change the game math of expectations. They just ground the game better or make the math actually work better (4).After that it's house rule territory, which gets trickier. Selectively nerfing specific spells and class features helps, but make sure it doesn't target specific types of characters. So changing spells that eliminate negative effects so they have to be equal or close to the level for example (no dispel magic on 9th level spell or remove curse that always works at 3rd level) would work.Adding exhaustion (temporary and recovered on short rest for feel, normal to be more punishing) whenever dropped to 0 hp can be useful.Here is an extreme but interesting option I just thought of. I recommend using it only on a trial basis as might completely and undesireably change the game. All healing becones temp hp. Any temp hp you have left after a long rest convert to actual healing.Finally, make sure not to gloss over or forget existing rules. I mentioned the optional encumbrance rule, but just the standard carrying capacity is something it is actually pretty easy to exceed if no one is keeping track. Follow the rules for spellcasting components. This means you have everything you need in a component pouch (unless it's expensive), but somatic components require a free hand or some in combat juggling. Make sure players use the rules for switching weapons rather than just ignoring them and letting players put away their bow and draw their sword for free.It takes care but you can get a more traditional D&D feel without doing extrene things like switching long rests to a week off (which destroys the old school feel of spell recovery for me).</blockquote>

Verification