Five House Rules for a Grittier Game in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
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Time Stamps for the rules discussed in this video:
3:17 Lingering Injuries Simplified
6:16 Gritty Realism Rest Variant
9:25 Sanity and Madness
14:12 Handling Resurrection Spells (and House Rules by Matt Mercer)
19:30 Lower the Level Cap (For more ideas, check out the "E6" ruleset for D&D 3e here: esix.pbworks.c...)
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I like how you subtly included "seeing a dragon burn down your home village" in the "real world" category, Monty. Where'd you grow up, bud?
Probably Romania
" You didn't have dragons running around local villages when you were a kid man you missed out
I've heard Florida is pretty messed so maybe he lived there as a kid?
@@arbadart1012 Trust me Florida is Quite Broken. I would not wish this Hell on anyone. Unfortunately once you get here you never leave...
That's Scotland for ya.
"Even mundane things, like watching a dragon burn down your entire village"
Pretty mundane, i hate when it happens
It's so mundane for me that anymore I'm just "meh"
"Today is very boring", by Jack Prelutsky
"Hm? Oh gosh darn it, my house and family is on fire again because of that dragon!
What an incredibly mild and minor inconvenience."
Must be a Monday!
Not again, darn it!
Remix The Idiot
"It was Taco Tuesday too!"
I remember how 2e handled raising the dead. Your starting CON score represented an absolute cap on how many times you could be raised. Each raise cost you a CON point, and the caster that did the raising gave up 5 years of lifespan to do it.
This is an interesting rule that I sent to my dm
2E was the last version I played. Constitution not only limited how many times you could potentially be raised, but also made it harder to come back next time since the current CON score determined the Resurrection Survival % chance. To top it off your total HP could drop because of the lower CON score. So, if you were a 8th level fighter with a 16 CON (+2 HP/Level) and 63 total HP if you die and are resurrected then your CON drops to 15 and your max total HP also dropped to 55 because a CON 15 only grants +1 HP/level.
Actions having consequences? Inconceivable!
Yeah but what was your THAC0?
@@matthewsilver892 If you are referring to the example I was using involving the 8th Level Fighter, the character's THAC0 would have been 13. Since the discussion is actually on raising dead and CON scores, there is actually no change to THAC0 when a character in BECMI/1E/2E was raise from the dead. The raised character retained their class level(s) and only the CON score (and possibly total HP) changed after being brought back with a Raise Dead/Resurrection spell.
Rule #1 - if you brought food, you get a free potion of healing :-P
DesolatorMagic Now, now, we don’t want a pay-to-win game like EA 😏
We translated it long ago like "The DM is bribeable... with beer, chips, and such resources." :D
A large chocolate shake is known as a potion of Dungeon Master control.
@@evannibbe9375 life is a play to game so if it's supposed to be more realistic it makes sense
Hey!
My DM owes me like 30 Potions! 😡
Here's how I handled the Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection:
I removed the restriction that it cannot bring back people who died from old age.
To explain: Each of these spells has an expensive material component which is consumed by the spell- diamonds. With no limit on how old a person they can resurrect, the wealthy and powerful in my game world all sought to extend their own lives by buying up all the diamonds. Diamonds are now extremely rare. Priceless, in fact. The wealthiest people in the universe (the wealth gap is immense) will give literally anything to get their hands on even the smallest of diamonds. Countless wars have been fought over the fate of caches of diamonds. They cannot be bought with normal levels of wealth. There are only two ways to get hold of diamonds in this world - find them in the ground, or rob a god. Either way, the mere possession of diamonds puts a big target on your back.
that's fucking brilliant
All though, if you die of old age and are resurrected, wouldn't you just die again right away. Since you died from your body being weak and without the energy needed to keep your heart beating for example. Now if you add something that could lower your age, like say a modified Regeneration spell, then I could see it work. =)
This is the plot of Altered Carbon.
@@pauciloquentflibbertigibbe5217 Ohmygod I'm so glad you noticed!
Thank you for this lovely idea. Adding it to my campaign.
I like how gritty realism rest variant is still less harsh than earlier editions where you regain 1 hitpoint every long rest
what the fuck 💀
@@AdnanHameedSadiq you still recovered spells, your cleric just had to burn a few spells after recovering them in the morning. It wasn't a big deal, you had to be more choosy about who you wanted to live.
well if you add the optional rules up to 3 hp per rest , but yeah it was rough .
@@IvoryKnight22I now understand why healers used to be mandatory
Hears “Getting shot with a few arrows”... immediately thinks of Sean Bean v/ the Uruk-hai.
''Tis but a scratch!
Hah nice
Sean Bean is best girl confirmed
I think of the animated version of Boromir. He was shot with far more arrows than Sean Bean was before he finally went down.
There have been real world stories of people being shot several times and surviving.
I’ve been DMing D&D for over 30 years and started with the white box original set. I started 5th edition a while back and I must say you guys are great at breaking it all down into a language everyone can understand. Bravo!
Ah! then you are familiar with the dreaded 'Green Granules', and loathsome drolls who reiterate 3/turn.
“4th level is when spells start becoming super-heroic.” Yeah, I sure wish I could teleport 500 feet, but I’m just stuck here blasting lightning from my hands.
I use sand to make my game more gritty
Have you tried using grit?
I hate sand. It's course and irritating and it gets everywhere.
@@bobjenkins4689 You beat me to it! Good on you
Everyone gets pocket-sand in their inventory in case they need a quick getaway
Beholders hate him
Hail Garud, the level 6 bard with every feat in the game who naps for a week after every day of adventuring! Long may he reign.
I'm personally a big fan of Epic Level 6 D&D for all the reasons stated in the video. One thing I'd add to any DMs who feel intrigued by the idea is; Just because the players are level six doesn't mean they should only be getting tier 2 loot. Your fighter will feel amazing with a flame tongue or vorpal sword even if s/he will never see those epic levels.
I would suggest a level cap of 7. If the cap is 6, then fighter, paladin, and ranger all miss out on their tier 2 subclass features. 7 gives them a real capstone ability. Rogues and monks get evasion at 7 which feels pretty necessary for their survival (and rogues get an extra d6 sneak attack), and 7 is a dead level for all primary casters, so their capstone is access to a single 4th level spell.
While that does essentially give primary casters two capstones, their tier 2 subclass feature at level 6 and then the 4th level spell slot, martial classes get their extra attack at 5 plus their tier 2 subclass feature. This simply makes sure that fighters, rangers and paladins don't get shortchanged. For instance Eldritch Knight can't cast a cantrip and attack until 7, which is a key feature of the subclass. Cavalier can't protect his mount until 7. This does make warlocks really powerful, since they get access to two 4th level spell slots, and moon druids break any sort of level restriction rule anyway because they're so overpowered early on.
It also allows for interesting multiclassing where 6 levels might feel too restrictive. A two level dip would still allow you to get five levels in a primary class, for either 3rd level spells or extra attack while still letting you dip for action surge, cunning action, a spellcaster subclass, etc.
Levels are a bad idea in the first place but capping them is even worse. Better to significantly increase the XP for each level instead.
TheShreester ikr? You simply can’t have an op BBEG be defeatable at level 7
@@evaahh9584 It also artificially caps player progression midway through a campaign, which is a restriction I'm loathe to place on players. Also, what happens to the class features after level 7?
I'd prefer to address the actual issue. If excessive Hit Points are a problem then have players roll for them each level, ensuring they obtain average HP overall. If this is still too much then homebrew a reduced HP increase, such as half their hit die per level (e.g. 1d5 per level for a class which normally has 1d10 hit die), effectively halving their HP while leaving class progression unaffected.
TheShreester also, if you’re looking for realism, in reality there is no limit to how strong someone can get, and if it’s a long campaign you en up multi classing into 3 classes. It’s not necessarily a bad rule if the campaign is short I guess, but I would never use it for long campaigns
I really like your rationale for 7th. That being said I don't feel this "e6" level cap idea is as necessary in 5e as it was in 3rd ed.
I consider my home game to be gritty. This is how I achieve that:
- Enforce spell components. No diamonds means no Revivify.
- To that, my gems don't fall off trees. Economics comes into play. My treasures are reasonable. The cost of living is lower. The average farmer would never pay 1gp for anything in an inn. Period. Copper and Silver are the standard wage. My players are on campaign #3 in my world of Tholl, and they JUST had their first big payout of 5000gp....to work for a Hobgoblin Khan to find a safe path through a massive Wild Magic zone. It will be a very hard earned 5K. And they'll appreciate it. Finding diamonds for spell components is rare, and that means the players have to make a choice - invest that diamond or "raise Gary" because "He jumped down that pit without looking"
That means that things like plate armor are much rarer. It means that not everything is gem-encrusted. It means that goods like fine silks, master-crafted furniture and paintings are where wealth really lies, and those don't fit easily into backpacks.
-Magic has a price. I home brew 90% of my magic items, and they're all quirky. They may have personalities, belong to powerful foes, carry a curse, or have a cost to using them (like hit points).
-Roll. Dice. Openly. When players know you won't fudge in their names they'll taker EVERY combat seriously.
-To that, I make Crits heroic. I use what I call the "Chris Perkins Rule." That means that the first dice (or set of dice) in an attack roll are maxed for the result, then the second set are rolled. A one-handed longsword with a +3 bonus to damage then doe 11+1d8 damage on a Crit. A "Guiding Bolt" will do 24 +4d6. And because I believe in fair play, the monsters get that rule too. I have one-shotted a Sorcerer with a Mimic. To date, there have been 10 player character deaths at my table. That leads me to...
-Have a credo and stick to it. Mine is this: I might save you from a bad roll. I may save you from a monster. I refuse to save you from yourselves. To date, 10 player characters have died in three campaigns. Easily 7 or 8 of those are from self-inflicted poor decisions (and the rest of the table would agree).
Why do my players keep coming back when the risks are so high and it sounds like the rewards are low? Because the rewards they get are keyed to the player that gets them. A spear that talks back to the Half-Orc wielding it, crafted from a splinter from Gruumsh's own spear, and which levels in abilities with that character is treasured. It may look rough when found, but just wait... That player went on to win an Orc Civil War in his fathers Orc Nation (The Iron League) and became Kor (Warlord)
A book that transports it's owner to the feet of the Dragon whom made it, whom then charges that new owner with tasks is now a plot hook. And the player gets to brag that they speak directly to this creature. I've seen players feed their own hit points into a sword to gain victory in clutch moments and watched a Draconic Sorcerer end a Kobold invasion into a Halfling village end because DEMANDED these little "dragons" "bend the @#$%-ing knee". The name Esgalnoron was spoke in hushed tones, lest "The Dragon" cast his eyes upon you an lay your village to ash.
In my current campaign, the leader of a decimated Merc company was willing to enter a duel to the death with another Merc leader for the right for his companions to live, and went on to marry a Hobgoblin woman whom he won the respect of. Heroics. Risk. Reward. Death.
Who Dares Wins. If the players want grit, make the risk great and the rewards just as great. Make them earn it. Heroes and Villains rise from reaping their rewards from glorious action.
To be honest, this sounds like a really fun campaign and definitely my style. Well done.
I would definitely in this game. Love grittier and more deadly worlds. Reviving has always seemed too easy.
Nicely done..something I dis starting in my new campaign is: the first ever 30 rolls are all disadvantage.why? Because you can be taught how to use a sword,but to thrust it into someone's belly is a different thing...they "learned" real combat after those 30...
Haha, this honestly feels like the game I've been running for almost a year now!
Worth noting though: killing someone in self defence isn't too hard and if you're trained to respond a certain way with a sword, you are likely to respond that way in stress if trained enough, even if you're no longer using a practice sword against someone with a degree of protection.
The thing that really hits people hard is the aftermath, PTSD is the simplest one, but regardless of what, most people need to find a way to come to terms with killing others.
In my campaign, dropping to 0 inflicts a level of exhaustion. Recovering exhaustion requires a CON save after a long rest. The DC depends on the conditions - making it worthwhile to splurge on better accommodations/lifestyle expenses. A character with Survival can make a primitive campsite (poor accom) or an equipped campsite (modest - requires tents, bedrolls, and such). No Survival means step down the quality by one - no gear and no skill = you're sleeping on the ground.
A long rest does *not* restore hit points. Characters regain half their hit dice, round up.
The level cap idea is intriguing. If I used it, I would probably cap at Level 7 and double the xp required to gain levels.
Mind if I steal this idea?
@@BlueTressym By all means. If anything I say is useful to another GM, I wholeheartedly want them to make use of it, just as I borrow from others.
I do something similar with the resurrection, turning it into combat. To bring someone back you are opening the door which allows spirits to enter the world of the living, so the living allies have to manage with spirits to protect the body, and the one being resurrected has to fight though spirits as a spirit to get back into the world of the living.
Conan the Destroyer montage
Reminds me of a scene in Poltergeist where they're trying to bring someone back and spirits are wreaking havoc on the other characters and then one has to "go in" after them which would be pretty epic in a ressurection for a dnd game.
@@LockSteady It was in Conan the Barbarian was it not ?
@@jean-christophearsenault2104 You're right
Anyone else read A Wizard of Earthsea? ua-cam.com/video/zTj0dXMY5D8/v-deo.html
Fucking with the veil between life and death is no small matter.
I like that exhaustion approach, especially the rest hybrid concept. I would do it a little different however.
1hour short rest.
8 hour long rest.
24 hour rest for one exhaustion.
The progressive 1 then 8 just sounds clunky More numbers game than roleplay.
You could even say a medium rest only gives you half your spell slots back. And that you still have to roll hit die to recover on a medium rest. Because who ever runs out of hit die? You always get them back first thing in the morning.
Hey, closed captions are pretty much apreciated, please enable them, even the auto-generated ones
I didn't know that the channel was why that wasn't there. Thanks for the info.
Listen to them and you'll quickly improve your listening ability.
@@giovaniteixeira67 I have a hearing impairment
@@mateusviniciusduponttomasi7826 UA-cam has a built in auto captions
@@rancid7182 He was saying auto captions were disabled.
0:00 : Sponsor (Lets get them paid, guys!)
1:23 Begin Episode
3:17 1st House Rule : Lingering Injury
6:15 2nd House Rule : Gritty Realism Rest Variant
9:25 3rd House Rule : Sanity & Madness
15:02 4th House Rule : Matt Mercer's Resurrection Rules
19:30 5th House Rule : Level Cap 6
Thanks! You are the MVP!
One of my house rules is that failed death saves don't reset until after a long rest. So if you go to zero, fail a death save, and then get knocked to 0 hp again, you *start* with one failed death save. Once you've failed three death saves in any stretch between long rests, you're just dead.
In my games, you only get 1 death saving throw per long rest.
The single best house rule i've used to make things grittier and more tense is making it so any healing spell that is second level or lower can't bring someone to above 1 or more health once they have reached 0, it will only stabilize them. It makes the party carefully consider their options a lot more and someone dropping to 0 is a much bigger deal than "oh just cast healing word on them." Doesn't make a lot of sense to me how someone at 1 health who has just been brought back from the brink of death can fight and move just as capably as if they were at max health so this is my sort of solution.
I'm totally adopting the Mercer resurrection rules
Which are those?
@@tvrdy3 15:08
I love Matt Merced’s resurrection rules. Completely agree with you that the best part is the party rallying around the fallen member, I’ve used it once and it was one of the best campaign moments!
I dont think I can think of any video that youve made, whether drakkenhiem or videos like these, that I havent stolen any Ideas from. Fantastic work!
I always add fears to my characters because it always adds fun and sometimes hilarious roleplay scenarios. My current character is claustrophobic and hes afraid of being alone in the dark. No darkvision and both of these are tied into his backstory. Oh and he can't swim.
In the Fever Swamp campaign I ran on my channel, we used a variation of the Gritty Rest rules. I made a short rest a night's sleep, or 8 hours, and a Long Rest was defined as "a day off of adventuring in a safe location." A week felt a bit overkill to me, but a day worked out nicely in practice. At first the PCs had to return to the village of Clink in order to rest, but as the campaign went onward, they found villages of The People who they befriended, letting them acquire new places to safely rest and expand their reach into the Fever Swamp. It worked really well for my purposes.
I added the concept of lingering injuries, but mine was definitely more punishing. Being drowned to death might make you very hesitant of going into water ever again. Being roasted to death by a fire dragon might leave permanently sensitive skin to fire or difficulty in hot weather. That campain was a nightmare though.
Instead of the level cap, you can also just make the exp required increase quadraticly, or quadruple for each level. Similar to the Gritty Realism Resting rules. This further lengthens the time it takes to become a high level adventurer, and makes them experience the lower levels for longer.
And also switch to xp based if you are only doing milestone. Makes people thirst for those kills more. Also make it so you could lose xp over time if you don't level up. Every night you roll a few dice. So to level up you've got to be the star of your team for a few days in a row.
@@coltonbuhler7011 awful idea Holy shit
@@coltonbuhler7011?????
The level 6 cap is just what I've been looking for for the past several years, thanks!
I love the idea of adding a status effect if someone's brought back to consciousness mid-fight. I may well end up using that.
What I do for my 'gritty' (really just low-magic) campaign is:
1) Resurrection is not a thing (undead tinkering, is)
2) Teleportation long distances (and planar transport/magic) relies on the phases of the three moons and is something the players would have to dedicate time to understanding since the people who know this aren't going to be telling anyone about it. (Things like Misty Step and whatnot still work normally though)
3) Healing magic and potions give EITHER Temporary hit-points of equal value to the spell/potion (which could signify a bunch of more grounded effects like a divine ward, a combat stimulant, or raw vitality) or actually heal a small amount of damage every hour until the total rolled is met.
4) I don't want to kill the players (I really don't honestly), but the enemies do.
5) They may well run into enemies that are not level appropriate.
6) The level issue will probably be mitigated by all of the above, and if they do manage to survive to above level seven and get crazy powerful, than they have certainly earned it and should feel awesome for it.
7) Magic Items are more rare, but more distinct than just +1 Flaming Longsword or +1 Ring of Protection.
I've been using the Gritty Realism rules for resting, for regaining health and hit dice ONLY. They can still perform a short rest or long rest as normal to regain spell slots and class features, because taking a week off every time you need to regain an ability sounds a lot like "dnd without getting to actually play your class"
My friend and I did a playtest on the 8 hour short rest and 1 week long rest and it works really well. Even though mechanically 5e is based around having 4-6 combats per long rest with a short rest part way through, narrative-wise it can often be hard to justify outside of a dungeon crawl. Implementing this makes short rest based classes feel more useful, makes full casters have to ration their high level spell slots, and makes cantrips/low level buffs far more valuable over the course of the campaign.
However, I'd recommend two additions:
1. Any spell that has a duration of one hour now lasts until your short rest, any with a duration of eight hours now lasts until the next long rest. This stops the wizard having to spend multiple spell slots to keep mage armor online, etc.
2. At any point, the party can decide to take an hour to 'rally', gaining the benefits of a long rest (so you can still have the epic end of dungeon combats where everyone cuts loose) but as soon as the day ends everyone gets a rank of exhaustion that cannot be healed until they spend a week having a real long rest.
Monty “One Hoodie String” Martin
It took me a second to find the other one. lol
When I DM, I also give characters a level of exhaustion when they take damage from a single attack that is more than half their max Hit Points (including any temporary hit points).
101k subs? Y’all are killing it
Dezbood If they aren’t, I certainly haven’t seen another that has been growing like this. Hopefully we can all continue to see it grow the way it has been for the foreseeable future, the content definitely warrants it.
A 2 year old channel with 100k+ subs and 11 million views. Yes, they are doing something right.
I’ve used all of these, in one form or another, except for the level cap. I might consider that one. The best thing about a gritty campaign is how much it encourages role play, what I consider to be the best part of D&D.
In regards to fears, the more unlikely your fear is to come up, the more likely your DM is going to bring it up. Don't be cheeky by picking a fear that shouldn't come up often.
Hey guys, I just wanted you to know that despite the fact I am DMing a campaign in a complete different system (GURPS), your videos give me tons of ideas on how to handle some stuff as well as house rules that I can easily adapt and make my game more fun.
Thanks for the great job you are doing!
I used to grant Exhaustion on critical hits (and falling unconscious) but at higher levels it quickly spiraled out of control when they were fighting a faction that had Monks in their ranks. Due to using the optional rule of Flanking, advantage was granted much more often and let's just say flurry of blows from 2 monks can easily rack up 3+ crits in less than 5 rounds.
And this kept going as enemies could have more attacks, or outnumbered the party :P
tl;dr I dropped the critical = exhaustion and stuck with falling unconscious = exhaustion, criticals causing exhaustion didn't work for my table :P but maybe my circumstances were different
the one rule i use, and aksing my players about it, we came to the conclusion that the threshold for actual injuries should be added, much like shadowrun does it.
heres what i added...
Damage Threshold = Constitution score + Highest Class Hit Die.
Exemple... Fighter Mage with 16 consitution would have a threshold of 16 + d10 = 26 !
now everytime an attack hits for more then this threshold, they roll an injury on the table of injuries. of course you can change that table to your likings. this actually links your HP to your actual physical form. much like a boxer, jabs do not hurt, so anything below that would hit you, lower your hp, but wouldn't actually hurt you. but tons of them actually tire you and eventually you will fall to what looks like just bruises. but anything above that actually leaves a scar. a scar that only magic can remove. to remove an injury one has to let lose a magical healing, specifically on that injury. no amounts of short or long rest can heal up an injury. Time or healing kits and a good DC can be used as a long rest to try and heal an injury. but it should be a time consuming process.
that my players were willing to try. and we been having fun with it.
I like it
Something I do at my table is I allow my players to expend hit dice on a short rest to get rid of one point of exhaustion per hit die spent. That allows me to rack up a bunch of exhaustion points on my players and force them to burn hit die to get rid of them. Which in turn makes them weaker for other nasties that might still lie in wait.
One of my current DMs is using levels of exhaustion for the progressive effects of some poisons (which my character is currently suffering through, so I know they are no joke) to create a gritty, realistic feel, and it’s pretty darn effective
It’s really heart warming to see you guys succeed. I’ll be starting my own D&D campaign very soon because of your videos, thank you so much!
For my resurrection rules:
Everytime the characters die, a part of their "souls" gets lost in the astral plane and with it, their experience and even some memories. The more often the process is done, the more damaged the soul becomes. On the resurrection, they loose 1 level. This makes characters harder to maintain and follow the group, since they will become disadvantaged and will need to be extra careful while fighting. It's a big consequence.
That is quite the intense rule. I respect it but wouldn't see myself implementing it in my own campaigns. Perhaps for shorter campaigns or one shots for a grittier, more intense experience. For longer campaigns, I worry it'd start to create issues about power and equality between players.
I do think applying the Resurrection spell debuff (The target takes a −4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the target finishes a long rest, the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.) would be an interesting take on all character deaths and revives. Maybe rolling 1d4 instead of automatically taking the −4 to allow for some more fun.
You two have shaped the way I play my games so much for the better! Can't wait to try out these rules
I think level 9 makes more sense for a level cap, to me at least. It would allow all classes to gain their second subclass feature and some of the more flavourful class features (like the speak with dead invocation and monk wall/water running), it stops just short of otherworldly or grit-negating features like divine intervention or aura of courage and last but not least, if a players want to multiclass because they have a specific character concept, they can do so without making their character completely suck at combat (outside of a few builds that might still be viable).
I'd also consider keeping the proficiency modifier progression going - keep the power level more or less the same but improve the accuracy of attacks/spells.
The "borrowed time" rule gave me chills
Gonna add this here. I’ve been using this in my games and it works great. Semi gritty realism. Short rests are unchanged but long rests take a full day of no spending spell slots, taking damage or making a constitution saving throw or dc 20 or above ability score checks. In addition exhaustion only applies if the targets didn’t take a short rest which included at least 6 hours of sleep. In general this method has had the folllowing positive effects. 1 characters actually get to do stuff during long rests making it feel less like a fade to black. 2 the hit dice mechanics r actually really fun when played this way and you can add more stuff to spend hit dice on like magic item charges. 3 characters use up all their resources and then come up with creative solutions to these problems. 4 Short rest classes finally shine
About the fears:
I mastered the first session of a new campaign last Saturday. 2 players only.
I gave my players the task to choose one fear each for their characters, and I was pleasantly surprised. One had the fear of fire and the other the fear of boxes.
The one with the fear of boxes had, in the first session, its fear actually help him out. They were accused of having stolen goods they were supposed to transport, and the npc used a truth serum on the character to discover it really has a phobia of boxes...
Probably the best first session I had mastered in my career as a DM
My campaing is base on "Darkest Dungeon" we implement a Stress and Madness sistem. It turn out than Stress is more deadly
Bruh.... stress is like the most damaging thing in our real world. A good 80% or so of sickness or problems is because people are under stress.
I homebrewed in a similar system that is based on vanilla 5e exhaustion, where fear and other strong mentally damaging effects can stack up to 7. Reaching 7, character rolls 1d12 where 7 are negative afflictions, 4 are negative and 1 is a drop of 2 stacks.
This really lets me balance the power of mid-late characters when they fight creatures horrifying and unimaginable for common people.
Been contemplating stress systems. Did you get yours from somewhere I might look up?
@@dynamicworlds1 he said darkest dungeon.
@@dynamicworlds1 Call of Cthulhu is the wellspring of madness/sanity
You guys have the best knowledge ive seen for this game as well as love the gameplay you guys do ots helped immensely for me as a new DM
Other variants along the same line:
- Wound points equal to the character's constitution+proficiency bonus. Every time the player drops to zero or takes a critical, they take a wound point. Wound points require active down time to recover from, and reflect deeper injuries that Hit Points (Hit point being a combination of fatigue, injury, and stress coming together to lead to the PC messing up and taking a serious hit). When a player exhausts their wound points, they take a permanent injury. In most relatively high-pace campaigns (especially when the DM makes time constraints a concern) a level 10 character with 12-18 wound points can exhaust them over the course of an adventure.
- 8 hour short rest, 2 day long rest. This hits a sweet spot of not sidelining the party for too long, while also making long rests a use of resources. With this modification, I would also allow ritual casting of some spells during the rests however, such as identify or Leomund's Tiny Hut. I would also permit simple downtime activities, such as research, of listening in at the tavern to try and catch gossip. The rest mechanics really apply pressure to the combat game, and while they should limit the non-combat game, they should also encourage pursuing it.
- On Resurrection: Let the NPCs use it. If your PC group kills an enemy, and assume the enemy is dead, it's pretty jarring when they come roaring back with vengeance, and inside knowledge. Ambush and vendetta are tools that can be hard for DMs to use, because the PCs like to kill their way through problems. Make death as cheap for serious enemies as for the party.
This is great! Question on wound points: what's the debilitation from this? And do they gain or do they lose wound points?
Never forget lingering wounds. Two words and you will never see people trying to get back to the fight with 1-4 hit points.
This video es BRILLIANT. I've been thinking about rules like these for months, and I reached to some of them that were really similar, but in halv an hour I've rebuild all the house rules I were using for a grittier game. Thank you so much, you've done an amazing job
One of my dissatisfaction points with 5e, has been the "Insta-healing" feature of rests. Fight like fools, take idiotic risks, limp back to a safe site, sleep, and *zap* back to full health. More like a videogame than 1e, 2e, or 3.5e. This brings me to my second point: woe betides the arrogant party which scorns or ignores the Priest/Cleric. This PC was the best source of frequent, rapid, effective healing and ONLY source of resurrection. Standard rate of natural healing in 1e was 1hp per 24 hours of rest! PCs had to be more careful and to value healers more, or they became obliterated.
yea, i find healing in 5e too fast, of course there is gritty realism variant rule, but that rule makes all spellcasters and monk basicaly useless, coffeelock cheese becomes the only option
Yeah...remember the goal is for the players to have fun!
I like to add in the Vices and Virtues from World Of Darkness for character creation. It provides an easy path to roleplay more, as well as tempt/reward the players.
Hearing that "Epic 6" actually works in 5e is amazing. I've been running E6 in D&D 3.5 for over a decade, but the crunch is starting to wear on me as a DM and I've been wanting to move to 5e for a while now. I'm literally giddy over these rules 🤩
I love the borrowed time rule
"Let me come back and finish this one task, then I will fade into darkness."
Yeah, I think I would track it separately from the HP Max, so you have 1 day/HP but don't have them reduce, just because that keeps from from getting SUPER fragile on your last few days.
I have an idea for the deal with the god of death where they could just reach out to the players and be like sup you can have your friend back but you owe me a favour and then you could make them do terrible things because if they piss off the god of dead their friends soul would be stolen
Ah yes, the classic "I don't feel so good" strategy
The Vax way
Reminds me of Goku
I had a character who had fear of being buried alive and it was awesome because on more than one occasion he had to be knocked out by our barbarian to go into underground houses or holes
This is awesome. My first campaign, my PCs are about to hit 14. I will make their next one a gritty one and change it up. It's nice to feel like a god, but it's also amazing to feel like a normal person and slay a god. Bravo!
“Because a lot of characters gain their 2nd subclass features at 6th level”
*ranger sobs in background*
I'd kinda like to hear your thoughts on the opposite: where the characters feel high powered while keeping things challenging, balanced, and interesting
I feel like thats less about house rules and more about a mentality. I feel like all you need to do is try to provide a challenge without considering too much how your players will defeat the challenge, then, when your players come up with a solution, whether that be a spell, a class feature, or a creative tactic, let that solution solve the problem. They will feel very powerful and creative, and they will feel challenged because if they hadn't done that then the encounter would have been challenging.
maybe that's not what you're looking for, but I've found a lot of GM's kinda get caught in a sort of "arms race" where they are always planning to cut off their player's options, and I feel like if your goal is to make the characters fell high powered, all you need to do is let them use the options that the game gives them to solve their problems lol. The only trick is to make sure that if they don't use those resources and features, then they would fail
I mean I gave my players each an ultra powerful artifact at the very beginning of our campaign... And I offset it by making each one of them have a crippling downside to balance it out, and it led to the first few sessions where they were just trying to find a way to counter or stop the curse or what have you. It's been pretty fun. Of course the entire point of the campaign is for the characters to literally become Gods in time.
That said I've also made sure that I use tactics in battles so it's still challenging for them to beat
Decrease EXP and treasure rewards, or increase the prices of weapons and armor. Or, bump-up the denominations, where something costing 10 silver, now costs 10 gold, instead.
Make weapons and armor only available illegally or for purchase from local militia or military groups, as local rulers don't want ordinary peasants rising up. This also encourages players to take the Craft and Profession skills seriously.
Make "adventurer" a legal status in your world- PCs are exempt from taxes, from the political hierarchy, and all other responsibilities. But they sacrifice any legal protections (fair trial, legal representation, etc) and rights to things like property, government funded education, etc. A good framework is the "Freeman on the Land" status in real life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land
Subbed like 95k subs ago, nice to see you grow so much! That's what happens with all to good content :). I love some of these rules. Not a fan of Sanity and Madness, but that is just because I'm a bit allergic to rules that dictate roleplay (which I think these rules do a bit). I might implement the exhaustion on 0 hp and the Matt Mercer Resurrection rules are great. I think at least, I don't speak from experience (other than watching critical role). I never had a character die with an actual character that could resurrect in the party. All deaths in games I've been in have been at lvl 1-4 or games without casters that could resurrect that weren't the ones who died.
Edit: typo's
Hey dungeon dudes ive been around for quite some time and you are my favourite dnd tubers and im looking forward to ur videos every week unfortunately i dont have the time to watch your campaigns but im sure theyre amazing i only listen to em as a fairy tale when going to bed i would like you to know that your hard work is really appreciated and that i really share your way of thinking and you are helping me a ton as i am the dungeon master for the only place in my town for dnd and i run three different campaigns and you guys keep getting me inspired keep up the good work i would only love if youd make two videos a week i would never miss a single one great job
How I rule resurrections:
If your character was resurrected by any means short of the True Resurrection spell, your character loses one level in the last class they took. They also lose hit points equal to the highest possible result on the class' hit die (without adding the constitution modifier).
This is one way it has been done in previous editions and I think it really does justice to the ordeal that is dying and then being put back into that body to make it function again.
That’s pretty good
I remember the old way. Pretty much sucks as a double punishment. You died. Epic level emotion pain. The spell costs. And then sorry - your party is now higher level than you just because you rolled badly on your dice rolls. Sorry to be you. Want more salt? Do you trust me as your DM now that I've punished you further and Lvl disparaged the group?
Great ideas and if you implement them all at the same time then just wait for next week’s video on fitting new characters into an existing party 😁
Oml level 6 cap is soo awesome never really thought of that idea? my players are going to freak and take it more seriously!
I have been thinking on this topic for sometime now. Your ideas are very good. I may just go with them.
Love the video today guys. Really helpful as I am new to dming and this is helpful thanks
I'm in a game right now with modified Gritty realism rules.
1. Short rests are 1-hour still,
2. Long Rests can only be taken at a larger Inn or back in the Capital City.
As we've moved through the campaign, we've added the caveat that we can only benefit from 2 short rests per 1 long rest. This prevents anyone from trying to cheese Coffee-locks. My fighter regularly carries 15+ healing potions in the game now.
Monty was my favorite.
But then Kelly wears a metroid shirt.
Now i dont know who’s my favorite.
How about Both
I wanna buy that shirt. Came to the comments hoping someone would know where to find it
one thing you could for level above 6, is to tell them you can get a point to add to ability score, a feat or pick 3 card of the tarot pile.(you prepared a list for the effect they give the player) and informed them that as their fate as been drawn they feel odd as if something just reveal to them a new power. wizard get a spell above their level on certain card on others he get info where he can find more powerfull spell etc. it add flavor and help for the rp.
brutal criticals: deal max damage + 1 die, also the target must make a constitution check of 10 or 1/2 the damage taken. failure results in a temporary lingering injury, this wound will heal in 1 week of continuous comfortable rest or a heal spell cast specifically to heal that wound. a 2nd injury in the same area results in that injury becoming permanent only a regeneration spell or prosthetic replacement will get rid of it.
fumble: a natural 1 on your attack roll ends your turn.
combat fatigue: at 50% 25% and 10% health you gain 1 temporary level of exhaustion, if your HP is raised above the threshold that point of exhaustion is removed. if the target reaches 0 health they gain 1 level of permanent exhaustion that is removed the standard way, all exhaustion stacks. (if the character has 4 levels of permanent exhaustion and then reaches 25% health they have a total of 6 exhaustion and die)
recuperation: on taking a short or long rest the character must roll hit dice to replace lost health, this must be done until the character is at full health or run out of hit dice. if they run out of hit dice and not fully healed they continue with reduced health. the party must have access to a healers kit during this process. upon completion of the long rest they regain 1/2 their level in hit dice as the standard rule.
magic is powerful: a spell caster can only gain up to level 5 spell slots. the casting of any spell of 6th level or higher still exhist but can not be cast alone. several casters are required. 2 casters for level 6 spells, 3 for level 7 spells, 4 for level 8 spells and 5 for level 9 spells. each caster can only perform a "high magic" casting once a day and it expends ALL of their spell slots and gives them levels of exhaustion: 1 for level 6, 2 for level 7, 3 for level 8, and 4 for level 9. warlocks are the soul exception to this rule due to the fact that they have a powerful patron assisting with the casting though they still suffer the exhaustion and can only cast the spells they gain from their mystic Arcanum feature.
characters are mortals: characters stop gaining hit dice at level 10. they continue to gain class abilities as normal but after level 10 their hit points stop increasing. the characters can still gain temporary hit points and spells that temporarily increase maximum hit points still work beyond this point however.
but then that means you will never play against anything in the CR 20. because they can just outright kill you. so basically transforming your game into a social encounter with anything that seems too strong like an ancient dragon who can outright just kill you. these rules while good at lower levels, only make the encounters unbearable at higher levels.
i feel like most people want these rules only because they want their players to take care of their characters. i don't need that kind of pressure to take care of my character.
@@dndbasement2370 if you go back to 1st and 2nd edition that's how it was. after 10th level you no longer rolled for HP's at all
@@sylvnfox i have the adnd 2e book here and yes you still gained hp after 10th level. While reduced. They receive a number of hit points still. Exemple fighter who still gets 3 hit points each levels. They also gains still from constitution. Other races also have the cap but can multiclass. Humans can go all the way to 20. All classes have 20 levels. So no you are making it even harder then 1st or second edition.
@@dndbasement2370 I didn't say you got no HP after 10th level I said you didn't ROLE for HP after 10th level. and compared to 3rd edition on where you continue to roll HP that is a huge reduction. also in 5e HD have increased, mages in 1-3ed had d4 now it is a d6, thieves (rogues) use to have D6 now it's a d8. a mage in 1 - 2 ed had a d4 +1/level after 10 for a max of 50 HP at lvl 20. my house rule for 5e same mage gets a d6 HP per lvl to lvl 10 that's 60 HP. a 10th level mage in 5e has 10 MORE HP than a 20th lvl mage in 1 - 2ed (side note I did not include con bonuses to HP because every character is different stat builds and can not reliably count con for every character)
@@sylvnfox still... You are making it much more deadlier then previous editions. And while i did love those editions... Healings over weeks puts on some serious breaks in your campaign and makes heroes dependent on allies for help. Exemple. That dragon wants to destroy the city. Better prepare the city. Because a fight between them is gonna be brutal. But what if the bbeg who sent the dragon sends an army just in case his dragon gets clobbered. Your players cannot do shit. All their stuff is gone. Serious breaks on heroics there.
But hey... Your call...
For my part... I find 5e pretty deadly as it is. I think you guys are either too lenient on your players or not playing monsters right. Cause for me... A bunch of lowly goblins just recently almost tpked my group of level 11 players.
I love the videos you guys produce and this one is no exception. These Optional Rules kind of takes D&D back to its roots -not something I had any personal experience with previously. However, that's how I made my home game grittier. We ditched the 5e rules entirely and converted our game to a B/X (Basic D&D) retro-clone. It added a whole new level of weird to the game as fantasy genre assumptions today are much different than back in 1981, and we are having a blast exploring the games roots and inspirations from Appendix N.
We've had a few fatalities in our game due to the grittier rules, but because character creation takes 5 minutes it's no big deal. The unexpected side effect is that even minor accomplishments of the survivors feel hard-earned and epic. It's been a very rewarding and interesting experience. I still love 5e, but I think scrappy old B/X is going to be my go-to system for a long time to come.
2:36 is when the video actually begins.
Hero
Thank you!
Regarding the level cap, something I always remember remember was an argument that Aragorn's abilities meant he was basically only 5th or 6th level at the end of LoTR.
One of the DM's I've met made the house rule of halving the XP in the setting so it took longer to hit the higher levels.
So when you did reach Levels 10-15, it was real "Epic champion of the Realm" style missions where they were superheroes /Avengers level, fighting off demon invasions or taking out an Lich and it's legion of undead threatening a country
The rule I like most is the level 6 cap. Still lots of opportunities to get a tiny bit more powerful, and probably find better gear or more wealth, so there's still personal "progress".
for the structure and timestamps alone, i have to give y an upvote
At first I thought that the lvl 6 cap would be brutal, but thinking through it some, it’d be such a cool game lol you could play a very immersive LotR type game with the low level protagonist feeling more heroic then superheroic lol.
Haha, since I have started DMing I've always liked the idea of capping at level 6 - but felt that many players would be bummed by that. Thanks for validating my idea.
The only downside is I've never reached a character beyond level 5 in a real game so, I've never felt the power munch. If I had, I'd be totally game to cap at 6 !
On the subject of resurrection . Usually for my campaigns I keep revivify as is but remove resurrection and true resurrection spells. For raise dead in order for the party to have this spell completed it is only known by usually 1 or 2 wise sages throughout the world and I make the party complete a quest to retrieve some ultra rare material component so the sage can perform the spell/ritual. (This also may mean bending the 10 day rule but still make the party feel the pressure of time against them) The rest of the rules for the spell I keep the same. This makes death more weighty and meaningful. If the party REALLY cares about that dead rogue they will go to the end of the world and back to bring them back to them.
What do the person playing the rogue do in the meantime? I try to avoid having players idling, and while I truly love your concept would I have to have the rogue-player take on an intermediate support character or similar to keep them in the game, while they try to bring the rogue back.
One idea I did for the level 6 cap was allow characters in addition to purchasing feats with xp was to purchase their class/subclass abilities with their xp, but they would have to purchase them in they would get them.
I've added a House Rule where a character can only be resurrected by the same Cleric once, unless that Cleric advances in level.
Sounds like necromancy would be the way to go then
I am loving these "house rules" vids Dudes. Great work.
You guys make awesome videos and you’ve helped me so much with my campaigns. You guys are doing great work with your videos! Keep it going!
Another idea about the death curse, is a DC 10 Con check to see if you lose a max hp that day, and the DC increases by 1 for every day you have succeeded in a row, reseting the DC to 10, as the characters fight back against death trying to take them back
My dungeon master implemented the gritty rest variant into our run of Tomb of annihilation and I gotta say, I absolutely hate it. There are 2 sorcerers in our party(everyone else is warlock or some type of melee class) and we still have to do all the traveling so we're pretty much useless after 1 day. Short rests being 8 hours does nothing for us and heals up and resets every other member in our party. Don't think ours was the type of campaign meant for that rule, but the dm loves it and the non-casters don't care. We realize we have no choice but to roll up new character's or veer into warlock if we ever wanna be useful
Yea it fucks up spell casters especially at lower levels. I think wizards have some way of gaining back some spells after a short rest. But how do other characters regain hit points? Don't you run out of hit dice
I really like the lingering injuries implementation. I don't know that I would do it for critical hits, but doing it whenever someone is dropped to zero hp or fail a death save by 5 sounds good to me. I might also have resurrection spells bring a character back at a certain exhaustion level (or have the caster and/or the target make a check to determine exhaustion level of the target). This makes death a setback and prevents PC whack-a-mole.
I think for a grittier rest variant, it's easier to just look back at previous editions and just say that characters only get back 1 or 2 hp per level, rather than lengthening the rest time (or maybe 10% or 20% rounded up). Another thing you could do is modify the exhaustion rules (if using the lingering injuries rules) so that each level of exhaustion lowers your maximum hit points by 1 x your level per exhaustion level (to a minimum of your level in hp). So a 5th level character with three levels of exhaustion would reduce their hp max by 15). Then replace level 4 exhaustion with "speed reduced to 5". Fair warning: This is a bit more punishing to characters at the low end of the hit dice spectrum (sorcerers and wizards), but they are also not usually front line combatants. Doing this would make those lingering injuries even more impactful and prevent characters regaining full hp every night.
I can see using sanity and madness in certain campaigns. I don't know that you need a separate sanity stat. I think that some combination of wisdom, intelligence, and charisma saves could be used to resist and/or recover depending on the situation. Personally, I don't think it's something I would normally mess with in D&D.
I like the idea of resurrection effects having a fail chance, and of having the effect have timer. Not so much a fan of the character's hp being diminished over time. I just think that just runs against the narrative strength of the returned character. Other possibilities might include having the resurrection be a powerful persistent effect instead of an instantaneous one. That would mean that it might be possible to dispel the effect. If you want to mitigate that, instead of the dispel insta-killing a character, they have to make death saves. On three successes, they become anchored to their world, but on three fails they die again. For some added flavor, consider any resurrected character not bound to the world to be considered an "outsider" for the purposes of magic. They can be kept out, contained, or detected as if they were outsiders (celestial, fiend, etc). One last possibility is that the resurrected is bound to the cleric that raised them. If the cleric dies, any people they've resurrected start making death saves to root themselves to the world. This gives your NPC's a way to indirectly attack the PC's.
I think the biggest problem with characters over level 6 is mostly the spells, so rather than cap characters at 6, maybe spells could have additional restrictions. One possibility: casting a 4th level or higher spell gives the character a level of exhaustion. This would only apply to spells 4th level or higher, not slots used at that level, so a character could still use a level 4 slot to cast cure wounds without taking the exhaustion. Another possibility is that 4th level spells and higher require a caster roll (DC: 10 + spell level). Failure still consumes the spell slot. Critical failure could result in a negative consequence up to and including death.
For the lvl 6 cap, I'd tweak it so that the fighter receives their lvl 7 martial archetype improvement at lvl 6 instead of an ability score increase, given that they no longer become as rare to the rest if the classes.
We've been using the adjusted rest for awhile now and, whiel it does put the breaks on a campaign, it heightens the realism and works really, really well for roleplay moments.
You guys should check out giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons rule tweaks. They're modular and amazing
Haven't come across this one before. Thank you so much for mentioning it!
Thanks for posting this!
Very cool. I do something like his trials but his rules are better and clearly written. NICE!
I think your rules that trigger a level of exhaustion are really nice, and add such a nice element to game play.
The sanity check reminds me of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, would love to add that to my games! Thank you guys as always! #yesyesyesyesyes
This was a great episode. Going to take much of the advice into my current home campaign.
I like gritty games, smaller stories, and when PCs have a real fear of death. This was a good video, but on the last one, I think level 6 is too low of a level cap. I think you can keep a lot of the same feel, and cap levels at 10. As someone who is an old school AD&D/1e player at heart, that is around the level most of us stopped playing back in the day.
Excellent content as always. The level cap at 6th ruleset would be absolutely fantastic to throw in to a ton of different campaigns to up the difficulty level.
I love the idea of the PCs recruiting a high-level bad guy to work with them and then the bad guy shows up and now he's a 6th-level oathbreaker, not a 15th-level one.
Just Monty mentioning Darkest Dungeon brought back the anxiety of fighting the Hag and watching as my whole party is slowly but inevitably wiped out.
I've been looking for something like world anvil!
Definitely using that exhaustion@0 thing.
I’ve been making our group either use an action to retrieve something from a backpack (because you have to take it off first), or have a teammate dig around in it for you (because backpacks are full of random crap).
Means a healing quaff mid-battle is pretty much a no-go unless they can hide for a while. Also, fighting with your backpack on means -1 to DEX.
Another way to make things gritty is a really small group *without* adjustments. Means flanking, sniping, hiding (and running like hell) are crucial.
I think a general rule that would invariably make 5e or any other settings you play in more gritty is to simply make things make sense. The "rule of logic" if you will to go along the lines of the "rule of cool" and the like.
Now you might say that means making things realistic and to that I'd say yes and no. Because while we can apply our logic to a fantasy setting to a degree, magic and monsters makes things weird. And that's a good thing but it also means thinking outside of our logic box sometimes. For example, elves and other long lived creatures should be difficult for us mere mortals to conceptualize under normal circumstances. Of course on the other hand we can take our unique experience with radiation in this world, twisting and turning how the effects of magic are in a particular fantasy world as a result.
Either way, when a world makes sense then players become more invested as there are stakes and costs to their actions as well as those around them. And honestly I feel the point of making things "gritty" is to establish such a connection but that also doesn't mean making things a nightmare either, which I do see a lot of gritty rules gravitate towards as an easy way to make things connective.
So are monsters regularly attacking villages? Those villages will build walls and have guards. Or alternatively, adventurers will be contracted much like exterminators and deal with an areas monsters on a regular basis. And to that point, why isn't there some sort of goblin repellent or ogre traps? Seems to me in a world plagued by monsters that also has loads of magic and crazy technology, you'd think something be thought up. But now what about those OP adventurers? Even at 5th level, casters are practically walking WMDs. Is magic regulated as a result? Do casters have to become registered and therefore under close watch? And as it was said at a certain point a single adventurer can take on many guards or soldiers. How does a king feel when he can potentially be overthrown by a group of only 4 to 6 individuals? Bribery, assassination or strict laws? And now that the king has thrown his weight around against the local heroes, will the people they helped go along with the kings decree? Also those monsters being exterminated, will they go along as well? Even if most aren't very smart, survival is survival and revenge is revenge. Armies will form, adventurers will end up on a monsters bounty board.
Lots of questions can be asked and many answers can be given. One reason why I love Eberron is that it very much uses the "rule of logic" and both asks and answers many similar questions.
It's been more than a year but here's my contribution for the 1st rule: "exhaustion aquired by injury or failed death save can only be removed by taking a long rest AND a successful Medicine roll or receiving a Cure Wounds without restoring any hitpoints for each exhaustion level".