Hi Mark! My players are delving into the Caverns of Thought (Planescape setting), and I’m looking to make things Lovecraftian! Any CR level will do, looking mainly for lore/unique traits. They likely won’t be fighting anyways, they’re only level 3.
I have a level 3 party that has stumbled into the Caverns of Thought by jumping into a cavern while already underground. They’re too low level for me to throw Mind Flayer and Eater of Knowledge fights at them, so instead I intend to lean more into psychological horror as they look for a way to escape.
My main plan is to have them tormented by a Nosferatu looking simply to suck a little bit of blood then slink back into the shadows. Outside of that… I need ideas for how they will find a way out. I know I could just have some obscure portal anywhere, but I’d really rather them have a clear goal rather than just “run around like headless chickens until you stumble across the exit.”
Any ideas/resources to look into are much appreciated!
Can anyone recommend mechanics from any system regarding a state between dying and death when your character reaches 0 HP?
I’ll be running a D&D 5.5e game soon, but I’ve always had a huge complaint about how the system handles dying. The Death Saving Throws mechanic basically just stands as a buffer to keep your character alive, because falling to 0 HP is very common, and the system doesn’t want you to be swapping out characters extremely often. It’s not really tense or dangerous feeling unless you roll a nat 1 on your first save. It’s just… boring. Feels like your punishment for falling below 0 HP is that you in real life don’t get to have fun anymore as you wait around for something to happen to your character. I hate it.
Then I came across the Daggerheart rules for dying, which sparked inspiration in me. I like their system because it gives the player a meaningful choice, and especially because it plays into the core game’s emphasis on fate and fear. I can’t lift it exactly because my campaign won’t have those themes (and because there’s no comparable “hope” mechanic in dnd), but I will have a theme of character Willpower that has some mechanical applications, so I’d love to tie that into my death mechanics.
So I started looking around some other systems for inspiration. I understand that a large number of systems just have you die at 0 HP, no questions asked. But that doesn’t fit well in 5e, at least at my table. Some other older systems like pathfinder have extremely long and overly complicated rules involving negative hit points that don’t interest me in the slightest. Draw Steel has a more elegant version of negative hit points that I think works well for them, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for.
Any other suggestions? Thanks!
I’ve been doing more homebrew lately, and I want to do my due diligence to make sure I’m not severely over or under damage in each tier of play compared to the official classes and subclasses. So I’m looking for a good, consistent way of calculating damage.
I’ve heard people discuss assuming a 65% accuracy rate on attack rolls and saves, which is supposedly a good benchmark if you’re not assuming magic weapons or DC modifiers are in play. But even then, I’d like to know where that math comes from and how to modify it if I did want to assume my players had +1 to +3 weapons. (I mean, I assume I’d just add 5% for each +1 modifier, but I’d still like to know what these assumptions are based on).
I’ve also been generally unsure on how to calculate AoE damage. I’ve just trended towards assuming it will hit 2-3 targets, because that’s just primarily what will be the case if you choose to use an AoE, in my experience. I believe the 5e DMG also suggested 3 targets for calculating average monster damage. But if there’s a better way of doing this I’d love to have input!
Mr. Mark over from r/BetterMonsters has a list of conditions that he made. My favorite is the Dazed condition:
> A dazed creature can only do one of the following things on their turn: move, use an action, or use a bonus action. If a creature becomes dazed during their turn, their turn ends.
I like to use an alternate version that still lets you move, but instead removes Reactions while the condition lasts. It’s a great alternative to Paralyzed or Stunned, imo. With the pacing of 5e combat being what it is, I like to minimize the amount of “you don’t get to play anymore” debuffs in my combat encounters.
I’m building up a collections of conditions like this, so I’d love to hear any ideas!