D&D 5E What's the best way to mimic a "willpower" mechanic in D&D 5e?

[Lalato]

If it's just a plot element, then it doesn't really matter. The thing about torture isn't if people will break... but how they break. Additionally, if the torturer is after information... that info may not actually be reliable as the person being tortured will pretty much say/do anything to stop being tortured.

If you're reducing it all down to a roll of the dice, just pick a save and be done with it. If you want to make it multiple rolls, then pick three saves (CON/WIS/CHA). The tortured person must have three failures before they break (kind of like death saves, but this represents the breakdown of the body, mind and spirit). If you want to make it harder to break them... make it three failures for each save type.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I would just make them roll six saves down the ability starting with Str.... then Dex... until they hit Wis and finally Charisma.

If at any point they make three successful checks, I would stop rolling and tell them they have succesfully resisted.

A bit ad hoc, but it captures the "feel" of torture nicely for a game.

 

[Emirikol]

I would just make them roll six saves down the ability starting with Str.... then Dex... until they hit Wis and finally Charisma.

If at any point they make three successful checks, I would stop rolling and tell them they have succesfully resisted.

A bit ad hoc, but it captures the "feel" of torture nicely for a game.

Lalato's and this idea are both liked

 

[Aribar]

Why not let the player decide how she endures the trial? Using her strength of will to ignore the pain, or having the fortitude to withstand immense punishment without breaking, etc. If she fails, perhaps she takes some amount of HP damage representing physical and mental stress and let 0 HP be either the breaking point, or if still defiant, being knocked out.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

WIS. /Survive/ torture would be CON.

This. And Charisma to not be a blubbering crybaby.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

WIS is certainly wrong for "saying nothing"-type deals, because it's Insight/Awareness/Intuition, not Willpower, according to Basic, at least.

WIS would be correct for "guessing what they want to hear" - i.e. Intuition/Insight, so would be good for getting torture to slow/stop.

CHA is Confidence/Eloquence/Leadership according to Basic, so would be better for resisting and sticking to your story.

CON could be used to endure various physical torments with less desire to talk. Racking would seem to involve this.

In the end, though, everyone talks (or dies, if it's incompetent). Not everyone tells the truth or provides useful information, though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In my just completed The Gate of Firestorm Peak campaign I created a Sanity and Corruption mechanic for it (to show the Far Realm degradation of the characters' minds and bodies.) Each PC added their 3 physical stats (STR/DEX/CON) and multiplied it by 2 to get their Corruption score, and added their three mental stats (INT/WIS/CHA) and multiplied it by 2 to get their Insanity score. Then every time they received any sort of healing to recover from injury, they had to make a Corruption check-- they had to roll under their Corruption score on percentile dice... and every time they saw something mindbreaking in the game (aberrations and whatnot) they had to make a Sanity check-- also rolling under their Sanity score on percentile dice. If they succeeded on the check they took no Corruption or Sanity damage (or very little), but if they failed... they would take anywhere from 1d6 to 3d6 in Corruption or Sanity damage (which was subtracted from their scores.) Thus, the more corrupted or insane they became, the easier it was to continue to fail checks and tumble down that slope towards 0 (and permanent body corruption or complete insanity.)

It seemed to work very well and my players really started to sweat once they got inside the Peak itself and entered the major field of corruption inside the Twisted Caverns. So many fights causing injury, and seeing so many things that drove them crazy that they were continually rolling and seeing their two stats drop further and further and further down. Never did get anyone to 0... but our Telepath did get down as far as about 13 or 14 in Corruption (which I described as her eyeballs expanding out of her head like the guy in Total Recall before finally exploding, rendering her blind... although as a telepath, was not a completely handicap as it might be for someone else.)

 

[Lalato]

In the end, though, everyone talks (or dies, if it's incompetent). Not everyone tells the truth or provides useful information, though.

Exactly. This was my point earlier. If it's central to the plot, why bother rolling. Especially if it's an NPC. If it's an actual PC... discuss it with the player and come to a mutually acceptable story.

 

[Kinak]

I'm assuming your player's okay with this. It's a subject a lot of people have strong emotions on and most of the rest have strong opinions on how it works.

In game, it's definitely worth giving the player some agency, though. Choose checks based on whether they're trying to lie (Wis and Cha above), trying to ignore the pain (really hard Con), reciting a random list of facts (Int and... Con?), bluffing them that they have the wrong person (way harder Cha), or whatever.

In the end, though, everyone talks (or dies, if it's incompetent). Not everyone tells the truth or provides useful information, though.

Yeah, if you're trying to model the way it usually works out, it seems like it should be Wisdom (to figure out what they want you to say) and Charisma (to sell it to them).

Cheers!
Landon

 

[Emirikol]

Thanks for the comments Kinak. We normally play WFRP3 and other games where social mechanics are hard-coded into the game as strongly as combat-murder, disease, insanity, shame, and crippling relationship ties (such as is used in the Smallville game). If they can handle that, they can certainly handle the mild topics that come up in D&D..plus we're adults so I don't worry about damaging a person's brain and sending them spiraling into poor Patricia Pulling's son's bedroom

Of course, nobody wants their character to be chained down and tortured (not something that we "roleplay", hence why I simply want a social-willpower mechanic), but at the same time, nobody wants their character stabbed to death by a Xvart either It's part of the reason why I would probably choose a back-up character or important NPC instead, but I'd reserve that right as a GM to go there if the game warranted it.

The badwrongfun only occurs when a player or GM holds the whole game hostage if he's not mature enough to handle the same themes that he watches in movies on TV (imo) and fails to express that to the other players or GM that he's not in agreement that he can handle an NC-17 style game. Happily, I'm not worried about it with this group..