Check out today's sponsor, Dscryb!: www.dscryb.com/nerdimmersion Use the code NERDIMMERSION at checkout get 10% off a subscription! 🧛To enter the Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Giveaway, click here: gleam.io/OLNUw/van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft-giveaway 🧛 Dscryb giveaway: dscryb.com/june2021giveaway/
As far as providing an adventure, there is the text right in the book about "It's one thing to hear about the massacre at Castle Ravenloft, but it's another to play it." While everyone is talking about using these survivor mechanics to create memorable backstories and other kinds of stories (which I think is a fantastic idea--Solasta: Crown of the Magister does this VERY well in its introduction with interesting oneshots for solo players to introduce each player), I think there's a VERY valuable tool here to be able to use that technique that you see in film to tell a story tangential to the main story that still helps to build plot. For example, those scenes when you see the villain scheming, but the main characters are unaware. Using these survivor mechanics, you can have those cutaways and still allow the players to control some kind of character relevant to that story being told. Imagine Star Wars. The main characters are Han, Luke, and Leia. But what about playing a survivor story as the individuals aboard the Frigate trying to send the Death Star plans before Darth Vader can recover them? Imagine playing Anakin Skywalker's family when the Sand People raid his home on Tatooine and take away his mother, Shmi Skywalker. If one of the players in your campaign was playing Anakin Skywalker, suddenly this cutaway has so much more power. Suddenly when Anakin insists that he WILL go and he WILL find his mother, the whole party unites behind him. And the revelation when they arrive too late hits all the more sorely. Now imagine your campaign. Imagine telling a story about your villain traipsing across the world raiding villages and monasteries and knight's strongholds and thieves guilds to recover elements of a single item of power that have been broken apart and safeguarded in each of these locations. Imagine that the players are following these clues to find out what happens, but as the players uncover the story, they then play the survivor experience of these holdouts trying to resist the villain as they bear down on them. You, the player, know their fate. But you want to win, and you will put up a fight. And no matter what happens, you will lose, but your actions might lead to hidden nuggets that the DM could have never imagined. The player leaves a clue that the main characters can find; they leave a note, a mark, a hidden message that tells the players something that changes the story in a way that is organic and collaborative. Evoking DND at its finest. Backstories are good, but they're only the tip of the iceberg.
It seems to me that House of Lament IS the adventure for Survivors. But knowing people would be mad at an adventure dedicated to them (since people like to complain), WotC upscaled it for "normal" D&D characters. So the simple fix is, dial back House of Lament and have your own Call of Cthulhu game. You can even use the extra House Guest characters to buffer the Survivors so they don't die immediately if you think there will be issues. And if they do die, now you have a Return to the House of Lament story ready to go. With the Survivors being those character's backstories as the Dark Powers, etc brought them back for another round of horror. Leading to them combating the Dark Powers as their fates have now become intertwined. You could even go so far as to turn a Survivor's death into a Domain of Dread. Where the party now has to rescue their former friend/ally from themself as well as whatever "citizens" populate said Domain. Perhaps the Domain would be one of fear and monsters as that would assuredly be the cause of their "death". The point is, this could be really really cool and terrifying. 😈
I’ve been writing a “play as the victims before you go full doom guy” for weeks….my mind is blown. What a coincidence. Love the survivor feats. Yoink! Haha
If you wanted henchmen that aren’t just guard statblocks, these are pretty alright imo, could really make the noble background’s retainers or squire actually be filled out by something other than a commoner stat block, but not be crazy for tactical purposes.
The Dungeon Crawl Classic guide has a level 0 adventure called the grinder, that this was clearly based on. Basically you roll up about 15 characters and send them through, and the survivors become your player characters. Itsgot a cool table with "classes" like dung farmer, smith, etc. You could use that one session adventure with DnD
I like this. It's like they semi-adopted Dungeon Crawl Classics' "character funnel" so that you can start as a normal person and come out a 'blooded' survivor. I am tempted to start a campaign solely to use this mechanic.
That is exactly what I had in mind as well. I loved the concept of that “character funnel” system, and I think it would be a cool idea to implement this by running a short series of one shots to help bring PCs together in a manner different than the “meet in a tavern”. Have it where the characters play an archetype similar to the concept they have in mind for what they want to play in the campaign, run a one shot that may have hooks to the campaign, and who survives now have bonded with each other that way and they start their characters at lvl 1 in the class they want. The ones who died now go through that step again, in a possibly hooked one shot with a similar character, and etc. until the players are all ready to begin the campaign with surviving characters. Maybe you could even do it closer to DCC by having the characters come up with new survivors to play each time, to possibly come up with interesting party compositions.
This sounds perfect for flashbacks or like you've said, backstories. I can see using this for sure for one of my players backstory archs, involving mindflayets and alien abduction etc.
Conversely, if at least one survivor makes it to the campaign the characters that didn't make it could come back as Dhampir, Reborn, or Hexbloods. PC 1: "Dave! You made it!" PC 2: "No. I didn't."
I actually disagree that this needs a pre-made adventure. It really seems like these are intended to be able to be dropped into any prelude or interlude to a campaign. I love this concept as a character or campaign introduction. Probably won't be too hard for a DM to get a story for this set up.
You can combine this with side kick and make a character that goes from normal person and eventually into being veteran over a longer time. transition from one genre to another, from the move Alien power level, to aliens power level. Using side kick levels is on these stat sheets allows you to still make them vulnerable for longer, but obviously be more competent than before. I’d allow them to take custom lineage as a stat bump when the gain their first side kick level.
if you want to make them capable, but not as powerful as a traditional class, the side kick option works for that. Really depends what you want in that group. Super hero standard of 5e Player character classes works for a lot of games. having things toned down for standard monsters and situations to be more intimidating, is just a different style of play for 5th.
Id love one day to play a super long campaign where I start out as a survivor, then become a sidekick and then finally become a full on player character
This actually came out at a perfect time, as I'm just about to start a campaign where I was planning to have players start with commoner stat blocks. This works so much better.
You could also do a DCC RPG style beginning to a campaign with each player having multiple survivors to start and then the characters that survive the initial adventure become the PCs.
My group just started Rime of the Frost Maiden and I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to start with a prologue like this. We totally could have started the campaign with a Game of Thrones style white walker slaughter that led to our characters.
For the first session I will be having my player use these for an event they went through as children with the second session being them having grown up and are now level 1 with the traits up their survivor traits carrying over and giving the all the Faye touched trait.
I've made a flashback survival scene for one of my players. He played himself and 3 other elf children and I had the other players play adults that were protecting them as they escaped from slavers. Had all the adults die but one and had one of the children die. It was great and it was all set up as a dream event before as they took a long rest.
I love these mechanics. I plan on using these during Session 0 if we have enough time after character creation. I wonder if they can be mixed with sidekick rules somehow.
This seems perfect for an adventure where you might need something important done but it's not very challenging for the main party. Have them otherwise occupied by something else, and sending some survivors out to do the needed tasks in the meantime. Maybe a village needs warning, or a beacon needs lighting, or an orb needs placing in a magical aura. Maybe nobody else is small enough to fit through a vent and open the door from the other side (but the vent doesn't need directly there, so there's a mini-adventure on the way). Maybe the main party draw too much attention and would look suspicious leaving an occasion, or need to keep an eye on some dubious sorts so as to not give them a window of opportunity... making the survivor party those not important enough to be missed, and therefore able to carry on with the task in hand regardless. Or could the survivors make their way toward the main party's location in case of a TPK, bringing vital healing supplies that could revive them, and also a distraction to draw the villains away from finishing the job? Being folks who were heading in that direction and going back in time a bit to coincide their meeting, obviously. Lots of possibilities with these, I love it.
I've altered this slightly. Survivors can get level 4, and gain an ASI at that level, which can be used for a list of Feats I put together to choose from, or the normal ability score increases. Sneaks gain 1d6 Sneak attack at that level, and Squires get Multiattack 1 with their weapon, to help keep up with the damage from the Cantrips the other two get. Finally, proficiency goes up by 1 for all 4 at that level. This allows Survivors to confront a Dark Lord of an appropriate level, while still being in a very dangerous position.
@@DaDunge I thought about upgrading to regular spellcasting, but that would give them level 3 spell slots the way I did this, and that's too much of an overhaul. I allow Magic Initiate, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, and Spell Sniper, so there are options to get more spells, but they have to pick from the wizard/cleric spell lists.
@@DaDunge And I went 1d6 Sneak Attack instead of multiatack for the Sneak because of the 4, that one feels like it's the easiest to survive with already if you pick the ability that doubles their speed, and their unique ability at 2 and 3.
@@DaDunge At level 4 they have 5 Hit Dice, at which point I upgraded Proficiency Bonus by 1 and Cantrips to 2 dice, then added a second attack to the Squire and Sneak Attack 1d6 to the Sneak to keep up. Everyone gets the ASI as a capstone, which I detailed above. Upgrading to normal spellcasting below level 3 would actually be a downgrade to the Apprentice, who is able to cast 6 level 1 spells if you pick that trait twice. I suppose you could open up their options a bit by changing those into spell slots, for example allowing Burning Hands to be cast 6 times, but then they get too powerful for the Survivor feel. My level 4 is meant for just before confronting the area boss.
@@DaDunge This is one of the planned bosses, they are meant to run not fight. Leanna Sylvaranth Werebat-Succubus-Vampire Size Small Str 14, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 11, Char 15 HP 41, AC 13, Charisma Saves +6, Perception +4, Athletics +6, Deception +6, Acrobatics +6. Languages: Common and Elven, Telepathy 60' Resist Cold, as well as Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Non-Magical Weapons not made of Silver. Immune to Necrotic and Poison Damage, as well as Charm, Exhaustion, and Poison, as well as magical sleep. Sunlight Sensitivity, Regeneration 5(Silver or Sunlight), Blindsight 60', Shapechanger, Freedom of Movement. Multiattack: Any 2 non-screech attacks, only Claws can be used twice. Alluring Carress: +6, DC 14 Wisdom or target is Charmed for 1 minute and fails saving throws against this ability automatically for the duration. Vampiric Bite: +6, 1d6+2+2d6(Necrotic), target's Max HP is reduced by Necrotic and heals self. Creatures whose Max HP are reduced to 0 revive as a Shadow that will not attack the creature. Screech: 20' Cone, DC 14 Con or Stunned until end of next turn, (Recharge 5-6). Claws: +6, 2d4+2 or Grapple, this attack is concidered magical. Spell Points: 12(Short Rest) Spells- Cantrips: Minor Illusion, Friends, Message Spells: Hex, Witch Bolt, Charm Person, Suggestion, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Major Image, Hallucinatory Terrain, Fear, Darkness. Legendary Resistance: 1/Short Rest Legendary Actions: 3 1 Action: Alluring Carress or Claw 2 Actions: Move up to Speed. 2 Actions: Command a Bat Swarm within 60' to move up to half speed and attack once. Lair Actions: Initiative 20 Open or Close passage through roots in a single location Or Spawn a Bat Swarm(Recharge 6) Or Reduce light level within 60' by 1 step. This creature appears as a Medium Sized nude female Elf until it is ready to attack. It can use only its Alluring Carress action in this form, as well as its spells. Its true form is that of a Small grotesque anthropomorphic bat covered in dirt and reeking of dried blood. She loses her Alluring Carress action, though its effects do not end if a creature was previously charmed, and she cannot cast spells, but can maintain Concentration on previously cast spells. She gains her Vampiric Bite, Screech, and Claw attacks in this form. Bats will not attack her for any reason, and obey her telepathic commands within 1 mile of her lair or 60' of her location. Shadows created by her Bite are not under her control, but will not attack her or the Bats she controls, and are permanently Frightened of her. I know I stacked a lot on here but she is not meant to be engaged directly, and will toy with any prey who tries to fight before she kills them.
Here’s how I would run this. When the party is around level 5, they arrive at a village. Some generic NPC has encountered a great tragedy, and they begin to tell the party their story. All of a sudden, there is a flashback. The players can then play out this great tragedy. Everything is narrated through the voice of the NPC. In-Universe, the party is only hearing about this story, but out of universe, they are playing through it. Eventually, the survivors die off one by one. By the skin of their teeth, one of the survivors manages to escape. That is the NPC that the party is talking to now.
I love the mechanic for hirelings as well! The adrenaline and scream talents fit like a glove, keeps them alive and out of the way. My only criticism is the apprentice should read that the spells per day are combined. It seems much stronger than the disciple in terms of spells.
For Ted and everybody else that wants adventures with this idea you should all check out Dungeon Crawl Classics. There is a first time fan kit that comes with dice and it's $35 which is lower than the msrp of Van Richten's. The back of the book has a level 0 adventure in the form of a dungeon and there is another famous module called Sailors on the Starless Sea which is a very well reviewed level 0 adventure. Players roll up level 0 characters that have to survive to become level 1. Usually each player plays multiple of these level 0 characters and the whole game is just astounding.
I'm running storm kings thunder and I'm going to run this when they get to Noanar's Hold. I'm going to run it as a most dangerous game type scenario and whoever gets their survivor out gets a minor beneficial property.
Do racial modifiers affect survivor statblocks? If so, can also background be applied? Do Variant Humans and Custom Humanoids get also a talent? I'm thinking about running gritty low level adventures (using slow healing and lingering injuries optional rules)
Got an idea for an eldritch realm mini-campaign where you play expendable characters that can and will drop like flies. the goal is too either find a way to survive by removing you humanity and embracing the dreams of the realm or suffer and fight to cling to your humanity and hope to find a way to escape.
I am planning on running a Kung Fu inspired eastern horror one-shot in the I’Cath domain, where my players will be power leveled to level 10 but have to take 3 levels of monk. I plan on using the survivor mechanic during session one to drop them into the domain in a very short horror setting where I get to explain the horrors of the I’Cath domain and when the last PC’s survivor is about to meet their demise, the PCs main characters arrive to save the day, then swap the PCs and start the main campaign.
Personally, I'd be more inclined to use Sidekicks to run a Survivor story. I mean, logically, some of the items the Survivors don't have - like armor - doesn't make sense. The Apprentice (Wizard-sort) I get them not having armor, but the Squire (Fighter-sort) ought to have Ring Mail armor, if not Chain Mail, with the Disciple having something like Scale Mail, and the Sneak Studded Leather Armor - depending on how much money they get paid of course, or if their respective organizations equip them with what they need. I mean, unless there is immediate danger to an innocent, no cop is going to run into a place that has a madman, without at least throwing on a bulletproof vest! Thus, with a similar idea of protection behind this concept of a bulletproof vest, the Squire, Disciple and Sneak ought to have armor. Of course, if they were abducted, and thus had no time to grab anything, beyond whatever was left in the room, then the lack of armor makes some sense.
I'm not so sure about resources is part of the problem since Mind Flayer is scary no matter due to eating brains which only few spell can be used to revive a person. There is a Cleric adventure for Curse of Strahd where you turn into a Vampire Spawn and have to survive the night or at less that's what the summary makes it sound like.
My thought is to use these for a long session 0-1, then have it that the players have a bit of time to recover/heal/train and they come back to start the campaign at lvl1 or 2 while keeping one of the special abilities as a kind of feat unique to them. For an example, starting a non AL Out of the Abyss game, have the players start out as this as they are being hunted down by the Drow, have them survive and take up their chosen class, to them be captured as they were seeking out the Drow or the underdark, starting the game proper then.
You could but it'd be easier to rebuild them as proper level one characters, since they're basically just a level 0.5 rogue, cleric and wizard, and just let the players keep the survivor abilities if they want to and it makes sense for the character.
I really love the concept but I am lukewarm on the execution. I really would have preferred something more like Sidekicks than having bland statblocks.
Hey Ted, just wanted to point one thing out to you. Did you notice that WoTC stopped giving spell slots to spellcasting creatures? This has started in Candlekeep, you can see there how numerous spellcasting creatures just have this "lite" version of spellcasting where they get to cast some things a few times per day. This trend has appeared in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft as well. I am kinda afraid this trend might continue and maybe we won't be getting creatures with the classic spell slots any more. I see this as an attempt to streamline spellcasting creatures and make them easier to run, but on the other hand I am kinda disappointed about it. I liked running spellcasting creatures and making tactical decisions with their spell slots. With this new system, NPCs will no longer be able to upcast spells, for instance. Unless their stat blocks contain an upcasted version of a spell.
Ow just got a idea for a game a zombie plague and a big group of survivors try to will survive. So the game esch time one dies you roll a new survivor from a dwindling number of people your looking for food weapons and survivors will trying not to get infected
I wish they had pushed the survivor idea even further. As these stand, they are just too close to being adventurers, just very nerfed. This is a weak fighter, this is a weak cleric, etc. I wish they were entirely new classes and abilities tied more to being a typical village commoner or castle servant. As a prequel mechanic, its great! Just not what I was hoping for.
This seems pointless. Just use the Sidekick system from Tasha's, start them off with the Commoner statblock, give them 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 for stats, and you're good to go. The Sidekick system lets you play two kinds of Fighter instead of one, their 'Rogue' is less pigeonholed into being stealthy, and their spellcasters come in three varieties instead of two. It even handles 'survivors' higher than 3rd level, in case you want to showcase some moderately more competent 'survivors' facing off against something way too dangerous for them to handle.
I am running Tomb of Annihilation and want to drag Orolunga into the Shadowfell as a result of the genocide begun there by Ras Nsi in his pre-yuan-ti guise as a divine Barae of Ubtao when he sacked this city in what to the denizens would have appeared to be the arrival of the zombie apocalypse being led by the right hand of a god. Running an "escape the city" survivor challenge as the undead horde arrives and a glowing figure wielding a flaming sword executes npcs left and right, as a sort of lived vision brought on by the dread mists that are forming about the city will probably do more for building the legend of Ras Nsi's crime as he hunts the Survivors taking shelter in the Ziggurat.
5th edition is a game all about being a power fantasy for players. Players get to mow down hours upon hours of work the DM does with a big ol' grin but the minute the DM even brings up the possibility of a character having consequences a lot of players moan and whine because 5e has spoiled them rotten.
O-o so they get 4 level 1 spells aday? if it was ment to be a choice then it would be easier to have them just in the spell casting bit. mucking hell wotc what the hell are they doing? ;-; why does nothing make sence any more.
DCC 0-lvl character funnel. This is WotC weakly shaking the ugly stick at a competitor’s coherent system. Y’know...incompetently. ...without follow through. It’s Embarrassing.
If only more people knew about games like DCC, Whitehack, and Worlds without Number. Those games have made me love this hobby so much more. Also Worlds without Number actually cares about the DM and gives them plenty of tools to work with to generate content.
Check out today's sponsor, Dscryb!: www.dscryb.com/nerdimmersion
Use the code NERDIMMERSION at checkout get 10% off a subscription!
🧛To enter the Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Giveaway, click here: gleam.io/OLNUw/van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft-giveaway 🧛
Dscryb giveaway: dscryb.com/june2021giveaway/
omg YES that's exactly what I was thinking, playing through someone's backstory, and then them becoming a PC's character or a key NPC!
I also absolutely adore this idea
As far as providing an adventure, there is the text right in the book about "It's one thing to hear about the massacre at Castle Ravenloft, but it's another to play it."
While everyone is talking about using these survivor mechanics to create memorable backstories and other kinds of stories (which I think is a fantastic idea--Solasta: Crown of the Magister does this VERY well in its introduction with interesting oneshots for solo players to introduce each player), I think there's a VERY valuable tool here to be able to use that technique that you see in film to tell a story tangential to the main story that still helps to build plot.
For example, those scenes when you see the villain scheming, but the main characters are unaware. Using these survivor mechanics, you can have those cutaways and still allow the players to control some kind of character relevant to that story being told.
Imagine Star Wars. The main characters are Han, Luke, and Leia. But what about playing a survivor story as the individuals aboard the Frigate trying to send the Death Star plans before Darth Vader can recover them? Imagine playing Anakin Skywalker's family when the Sand People raid his home on Tatooine and take away his mother, Shmi Skywalker. If one of the players in your campaign was playing Anakin Skywalker, suddenly this cutaway has so much more power. Suddenly when Anakin insists that he WILL go and he WILL find his mother, the whole party unites behind him. And the revelation when they arrive too late hits all the more sorely.
Now imagine your campaign. Imagine telling a story about your villain traipsing across the world raiding villages and monasteries and knight's strongholds and thieves guilds to recover elements of a single item of power that have been broken apart and safeguarded in each of these locations. Imagine that the players are following these clues to find out what happens, but as the players uncover the story, they then play the survivor experience of these holdouts trying to resist the villain as they bear down on them. You, the player, know their fate. But you want to win, and you will put up a fight. And no matter what happens, you will lose, but your actions might lead to hidden nuggets that the DM could have never imagined. The player leaves a clue that the main characters can find; they leave a note, a mark, a hidden message that tells the players something that changes the story in a way that is organic and collaborative. Evoking DND at its finest.
Backstories are good, but they're only the tip of the iceberg.
It seems to me that House of Lament IS the adventure for Survivors. But knowing people would be mad at an adventure dedicated to them (since people like to complain), WotC upscaled it for "normal" D&D characters. So the simple fix is, dial back House of Lament and have your own Call of Cthulhu game. You can even use the extra House Guest characters to buffer the Survivors so they don't die immediately if you think there will be issues. And if they do die, now you have a Return to the House of Lament story ready to go. With the Survivors being those character's backstories as the Dark Powers, etc brought them back for another round of horror. Leading to them combating the Dark Powers as their fates have now become intertwined. You could even go so far as to turn a Survivor's death into a Domain of Dread. Where the party now has to rescue their former friend/ally from themself as well as whatever "citizens" populate said Domain. Perhaps the Domain would be one of fear and monsters as that would assuredly be the cause of their "death".
The point is, this could be really really cool and terrifying. 😈
I’ve been writing a “play as the victims before you go full doom guy” for weeks….my mind is blown. What a coincidence. Love the survivor feats. Yoink! Haha
If you wanted henchmen that aren’t just guard statblocks, these are pretty alright imo, could really make the noble background’s retainers or squire actually be filled out by something other than a commoner stat block, but not be crazy for tactical purposes.
I like how flexible this is. Seems great for backstories and dream sequences.
The Dungeon Crawl Classic guide has a level 0 adventure called the grinder, that this was clearly based on. Basically you roll up about 15 characters and send them through, and the survivors become your player characters. Itsgot a cool table with "classes" like dung farmer, smith, etc. You could use that one session adventure with DnD
I like this. It's like they semi-adopted Dungeon Crawl Classics' "character funnel" so that you can start as a normal person and come out a 'blooded' survivor. I am tempted to start a campaign solely to use this mechanic.
That is exactly what I had in mind as well. I loved the concept of that “character funnel” system, and I think it would be a cool idea to implement this by running a short series of one shots to help bring PCs together in a manner different than the “meet in a tavern”.
Have it where the characters play an archetype similar to the concept they have in mind for what they want to play in the campaign, run a one shot that may have hooks to the campaign, and who survives now have bonded with each other that way and they start their characters at lvl 1 in the class they want. The ones who died now go through that step again, in a possibly hooked one shot with a similar character, and etc. until the players are all ready to begin the campaign with surviving characters.
Maybe you could even do it closer to DCC by having the characters come up with new survivors to play each time, to possibly come up with interesting party compositions.
This sounds perfect for flashbacks or like you've said, backstories. I can see using this for sure for one of my players backstory archs, involving mindflayets and alien abduction etc.
Conversely, if at least one survivor makes it to the campaign the characters that didn't make it could come back as Dhampir, Reborn, or Hexbloods.
PC 1: "Dave! You made it!"
PC 2: "No. I didn't."
I actually disagree that this needs a pre-made adventure. It really seems like these are intended to be able to be dropped into any prelude or interlude to a campaign. I love this concept as a character or campaign introduction. Probably won't be too hard for a DM to get a story for this set up.
I totally agree with your summary on this,
I love the idea of it straight out of the box but boy would I fiddle with it before it gets to table 👍
You can combine this with side kick and make a character that goes from normal person and eventually into being veteran over a longer time.
transition from one genre to another, from the move Alien power level, to aliens power level.
Using side kick levels is on these stat sheets allows you to still make them vulnerable for longer, but obviously be more competent than before.
I’d allow them to take custom lineage as a stat bump when the gain their first side kick level.
Why does it have to be Side Kicks? Why not just let them gain a PC level or so for that horror to action
if you want to make them capable, but not as powerful as a traditional class, the side kick option works for that.
Really depends what you want in that group.
Super hero standard of 5e Player character classes works for a lot of games.
having things toned down for standard monsters and situations to be more intimidating, is just a different style of play for 5th.
Id love one day to play a super long campaign where I start out as a survivor, then become a sidekick and then finally become a full on player character
This actually came out at a perfect time, as I'm just about to start a campaign where I was planning to have players start with commoner stat blocks. This works so much better.
You could also do a DCC RPG style beginning to a campaign with each player having multiple survivors to start and then the characters that survive the initial adventure become the PCs.
My group just started Rime of the Frost Maiden and I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to start with a prologue like this. We totally could have started the campaign with a Game of Thrones style white walker slaughter that led to our characters.
I really like this and may use these rules anytime I start a new campaign from here on out
For the first session I will be having my player use these for an event they went through as children with the second session being them having grown up and are now level 1 with the traits up their survivor traits carrying over and giving the all the Faye touched trait.
I think it is a neat idea. Agreed we should have had an example adventure for it
In short survivors are NPC's played by players, but with its own set of character rules.
Yup
Loved the content. Thanks for covering this new mechanic! Gonna be super useful in the games I run!
I've made a flashback survival scene for one of my players. He played himself and 3 other elf children and I had the other players play adults that were protecting them as they escaped from slavers. Had all the adults die but one and had one of the children die. It was great and it was all set up as a dream event before as they took a long rest.
I love these mechanics. I plan on using these during Session 0 if we have enough time after character creation. I wonder if they can be mixed with sidekick rules somehow.
This seems perfect for an adventure where you might need something important done but it's not very challenging for the main party. Have them otherwise occupied by something else, and sending some survivors out to do the needed tasks in the meantime. Maybe a village needs warning, or a beacon needs lighting, or an orb needs placing in a magical aura. Maybe nobody else is small enough to fit through a vent and open the door from the other side (but the vent doesn't need directly there, so there's a mini-adventure on the way). Maybe the main party draw too much attention and would look suspicious leaving an occasion, or need to keep an eye on some dubious sorts so as to not give them a window of opportunity... making the survivor party those not important enough to be missed, and therefore able to carry on with the task in hand regardless. Or could the survivors make their way toward the main party's location in case of a TPK, bringing vital healing supplies that could revive them, and also a distraction to draw the villains away from finishing the job? Being folks who were heading in that direction and going back in time a bit to coincide their meeting, obviously. Lots of possibilities with these, I love it.
You could do Death House for Survivors but change out some of the monsters to CR level 1/8 - 1...or homebrew something.
Ted talks about Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. If you know, you know. XD Alien series is a good example too. Someone plays Ripley.
I've altered this slightly. Survivors can get level 4, and gain an ASI at that level, which can be used for a list of Feats I put together to choose from, or the normal ability score increases. Sneaks gain 1d6 Sneak attack at that level, and Squires get Multiattack 1 with their weapon, to help keep up with the damage from the Cantrips the other two get. Finally, proficiency goes up by 1 for all 4 at that level. This allows Survivors to confront a Dark Lord of an appropriate level, while still being in a very dangerous position.
@@DaDunge I thought about upgrading to regular spellcasting, but that would give them level 3 spell slots the way I did this, and that's too much of an overhaul. I allow Magic Initiate, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, and Spell Sniper, so there are options to get more spells, but they have to pick from the wizard/cleric spell lists.
@@DaDunge And I went 1d6 Sneak Attack instead of multiatack for the Sneak because of the 4, that one feels like it's the easiest to survive with already if you pick the ability that doubles their speed, and their unique ability at 2 and 3.
@@DaDunge At level 4 they have 5 Hit Dice, at which point I upgraded Proficiency Bonus by 1 and Cantrips to 2 dice, then added a second attack to the Squire and Sneak Attack 1d6 to the Sneak to keep up. Everyone gets the ASI as a capstone, which I detailed above.
Upgrading to normal spellcasting below level 3 would actually be a downgrade to the Apprentice, who is able to cast 6 level 1 spells if you pick that trait twice. I suppose you could open up their options a bit by changing those into spell slots, for example allowing Burning Hands to be cast 6 times, but then they get too powerful for the Survivor feel. My level 4 is meant for just before confronting the area boss.
@@DaDunge This is one of the planned bosses, they are meant to run not fight.
Leanna Sylvaranth
Werebat-Succubus-Vampire
Size Small
Str 14, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 11, Char 15
HP 41, AC 13, Charisma Saves +6, Perception +4, Athletics +6, Deception +6, Acrobatics +6.
Languages: Common and Elven, Telepathy 60'
Resist Cold, as well as Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Non-Magical Weapons not made of Silver.
Immune to Necrotic and Poison Damage, as well as Charm, Exhaustion, and Poison, as well as magical sleep.
Sunlight Sensitivity, Regeneration 5(Silver or Sunlight), Blindsight 60', Shapechanger, Freedom of Movement.
Multiattack: Any 2 non-screech attacks, only Claws can be used twice.
Alluring Carress: +6, DC 14 Wisdom or target is Charmed for 1 minute and fails saving throws against this ability automatically for the duration.
Vampiric Bite: +6, 1d6+2+2d6(Necrotic), target's Max HP is reduced by Necrotic and heals self. Creatures whose Max HP are reduced to 0 revive as a Shadow that will not attack the creature.
Screech: 20' Cone, DC 14 Con or Stunned until end of next turn, (Recharge 5-6).
Claws: +6, 2d4+2 or Grapple, this attack is concidered magical.
Spell Points: 12(Short Rest)
Spells-
Cantrips: Minor Illusion, Friends, Message
Spells: Hex, Witch Bolt, Charm Person, Suggestion, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Major Image, Hallucinatory Terrain, Fear, Darkness.
Legendary Resistance: 1/Short Rest
Legendary Actions: 3
1 Action: Alluring Carress or Claw
2 Actions: Move up to Speed.
2 Actions: Command a Bat Swarm within 60' to move up to half speed and attack once.
Lair Actions: Initiative 20
Open or Close passage through roots in a single location
Or
Spawn a Bat Swarm(Recharge 6)
Or
Reduce light level within 60' by 1 step.
This creature appears as a Medium Sized nude female Elf until it is ready to attack. It can use only its Alluring Carress action in this form, as well as its spells.
Its true form is that of a Small grotesque anthropomorphic bat covered in dirt and reeking of dried blood. She loses her Alluring Carress action, though its effects do not end if a creature was previously charmed, and she cannot cast spells, but can maintain Concentration on previously cast spells. She gains her Vampiric Bite, Screech, and Claw attacks in this form.
Bats will not attack her for any reason, and obey her telepathic commands within 1 mile of her lair or 60' of her location.
Shadows created by her Bite are not under her control, but will not attack her or the Bats she controls, and are permanently Frightened of her.
I know I stacked a lot on here but she is not meant to be engaged directly, and will toy with any prey who tries to fight before she kills them.
Here’s how I would run this. When the party is around level 5, they arrive at a village. Some generic NPC has encountered a great tragedy, and they begin to tell the party their story. All of a sudden, there is a flashback. The players can then play out this great tragedy. Everything is narrated through the voice of the NPC. In-Universe, the party is only hearing about this story, but out of universe, they are playing through it.
Eventually, the survivors die off one by one. By the skin of their teeth, one of the survivors manages to escape. That is the NPC that the party is talking to now.
I love the mechanic for hirelings as well! The adrenaline and scream talents fit like a glove, keeps them alive and out of the way. My only criticism is the apprentice should read that the spells per day are combined. It seems much stronger than the disciple in terms of spells.
For Ted and everybody else that wants adventures with this idea you should all check out Dungeon Crawl Classics. There is a first time fan kit that comes with dice and it's $35 which is lower than the msrp of Van Richten's. The back of the book has a level 0 adventure in the form of a dungeon and there is another famous module called Sailors on the Starless Sea which is a very well reviewed level 0 adventure. Players roll up level 0 characters that have to survive to become level 1. Usually each player plays multiple of these level 0 characters and the whole game is just astounding.
I'm running storm kings thunder and I'm going to run this when they get to Noanar's Hold. I'm going to run it as a most dangerous game type scenario and whoever gets their survivor out gets a minor beneficial property.
Do racial modifiers affect survivor statblocks? If so, can also background be applied? Do Variant Humans and Custom Humanoids get also a talent?
I'm thinking about running gritty low level adventures (using slow healing and lingering injuries optional rules)
Got an idea for an eldritch realm mini-campaign where you play expendable characters that can and will drop like flies. the goal is too either find a way to survive by removing you humanity and embracing the dreams of the realm or suffer and fight to cling to your humanity and hope to find a way to escape.
I am planning on running a Kung Fu inspired eastern horror one-shot in the I’Cath domain, where my players will be power leveled to level 10 but have to take 3 levels of monk. I plan on using the survivor mechanic during session one to drop them into the domain in a very short horror setting where I get to explain the horrors of the I’Cath domain and when the last PC’s survivor is about to meet their demise, the PCs main characters arrive to save the day, then swap the PCs and start the main campaign.
Personally, I'd be more inclined to use Sidekicks to run a Survivor story. I mean, logically, some of the items the Survivors don't have - like armor - doesn't make sense. The Apprentice (Wizard-sort) I get them not having armor, but the Squire (Fighter-sort) ought to have Ring Mail armor, if not Chain Mail, with the Disciple having something like Scale Mail, and the Sneak Studded Leather Armor - depending on how much money they get paid of course, or if their respective organizations equip them with what they need. I mean, unless there is immediate danger to an innocent, no cop is going to run into a place that has a madman, without at least throwing on a bulletproof vest! Thus, with a similar idea of protection behind this concept of a bulletproof vest, the Squire, Disciple and Sneak ought to have armor.
Of course, if they were abducted, and thus had no time to grab anything, beyond whatever was left in the room, then the lack of armor makes some sense.
This feels great for a Dead by Daylight style one-shot
It's intriguing
I'm not so sure about resources is part of the problem since Mind Flayer is scary no matter due to eating brains which only few spell can be used to revive a person.
There is a Cleric adventure for Curse of Strahd where you turn into a Vampire Spawn and have to survive the night or at less that's what the summary makes it sound like.
Huh did one of these in one of my campaigns where they were all bullywogs
My thought is to use these for a long session 0-1, then have it that the players have a bit of time to recover/heal/train and they come back to start the campaign at lvl1 or 2 while keeping one of the special abilities as a kind of feat unique to them.
For an example, starting a non AL Out of the Abyss game, have the players start out as this as they are being hunted down by the Drow, have them survive and take up their chosen class, to them be captured as they were seeking out the Drow or the underdark, starting the game proper then.
It’s ok. I think it should have been an expansion of the sidekick options/mechanics.
I wonder if you could continue using survivors by letting them level up like sidekicks from Tasha’s
You could but it'd be easier to rebuild them as proper level one characters, since they're basically just a level 0.5 rogue, cleric and wizard, and just let the players keep the survivor abilities if they want to and it makes sense for the character.
I really love the concept but I am lukewarm on the execution. I really would have preferred something more like Sidekicks than having bland statblocks.
How different is this to sidekicks?
Very
Hey Ted, just wanted to point one thing out to you. Did you notice that WoTC stopped giving spell slots to spellcasting creatures? This has started in Candlekeep, you can see there how numerous spellcasting creatures just have this "lite" version of spellcasting where they get to cast some things a few times per day. This trend has appeared in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft as well. I am kinda afraid this trend might continue and maybe we won't be getting creatures with the classic spell slots any more.
I see this as an attempt to streamline spellcasting creatures and make them easier to run, but on the other hand I am kinda disappointed about it. I liked running spellcasting creatures and making tactical decisions with their spell slots. With this new system, NPCs will no longer be able to upcast spells, for instance. Unless their stat blocks contain an upcasted version of a spell.
i would welcome a bit more customization
Is it just me or does that bride look like the one from REC 3?
Ow just got a idea for a game a zombie plague and a big group of survivors try to will survive. So the game esch time one dies you roll a new survivor from a dwindling number of people your looking for food weapons and survivors will trying not to get infected
I wish they had pushed the survivor idea even further. As these stand, they are just too close to being adventurers, just very nerfed. This is a weak fighter, this is a weak cleric, etc. I wish they were entirely new classes and abilities tied more to being a typical village commoner or castle servant. As a prequel mechanic, its great! Just not what I was hoping for.
This seems pointless. Just use the Sidekick system from Tasha's, start them off with the Commoner statblock, give them 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 for stats, and you're good to go. The Sidekick system lets you play two kinds of Fighter instead of one, their 'Rogue' is less pigeonholed into being stealthy, and their spellcasters come in three varieties instead of two. It even handles 'survivors' higher than 3rd level, in case you want to showcase some moderately more competent 'survivors' facing off against something way too dangerous for them to handle.
I am running Tomb of Annihilation and want to drag Orolunga into the Shadowfell as a result of the genocide begun there by Ras Nsi in his pre-yuan-ti guise as a divine Barae of Ubtao when he sacked this city in what to the denizens would have appeared to be the arrival of the zombie apocalypse being led by the right hand of a god.
Running an "escape the city" survivor challenge as the undead horde arrives and a glowing figure wielding a flaming sword executes npcs left and right, as a sort of lived vision brought on by the dread mists that are forming about the city will probably do more for building the legend of Ras Nsi's crime as he hunts the Survivors taking shelter in the Ziggurat.
If you're interested in running a game with this, literally just play Dungeon Crawl Classics instead. Infinitely better.
yeah I really wish people would actually branch out into other games.
I could be wrong but isn't the hardcover for Dungeon Crawl Classics cheaper than this Ravenloft book?
This just seems like a power fantasy for DMs
5th edition is a game all about being a power fantasy for players. Players get to mow down hours upon hours of work the DM does with a big ol' grin but the minute the DM even brings up the possibility of a character having consequences a lot of players moan and whine because 5e has spoiled them rotten.
O-o so they get 4 level 1 spells aday? if it was ment to be a choice then it would be easier to have them just in the spell casting bit. mucking hell wotc what the hell are they doing? ;-; why does nothing make sence any more.
DCC 0-lvl character funnel.
This is WotC weakly shaking the ugly stick at a competitor’s coherent system. Y’know...incompetently.
...without follow through.
It’s Embarrassing.
If only more people knew about games like DCC, Whitehack, and Worlds without Number. Those games have made me love this hobby so much more. Also Worlds without Number actually cares about the DM and gives them plenty of tools to work with to generate content.