5 Ways to Make D&D More BRUTAL...
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- Wanna make your next D&D campaign harder and more challenging? Here are 5 mechanics to take that campaign and make it BRUTAL...
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Rations and camp resources is something we've been implementing. Although since I'm playing a werewolf food hasn't been too much of an issue, I can eat almost anything with meat on it. Injuries are something we've also implemented into roleplay, after my face was cut severely by a silver sword I had to seek out a cleric to restore vision in my left eye, and now I have a permanent Geralt style Hollywood eye scar.
I removed healing to full on a long rest, and you regain 1/3 your level in HD on a LR. A level of exhaustion accompanies hitting 0 HP. My goal was to make healing in combat more important and avoid pop up healing.
did you buff healing in any considerable way to incentivise that playstyle?
@@someusername9591 - nope, it's not needed. I simply made it more like 3.5e/PF.
@sleepinggiant4062 let's look at a 3rd level party. when a 2nd level cure wounds (which the 3rd level healer will only get maybe 2 of) with an assumed spellcasting modifier of +3 heals an average of 11 hit points and an owlbear makes two attacks that do 10 and 14 average damage respectively. Meaning healing absolutely needs a buff if you want it to be viable for preventing going down instead of just popping people from 0 otherwise your healer is just blowing their spell slots only to have them wiped away by the next attack
@@2g33ksgamingttv3 - That's not the way healing should work. Healing keeping up with damage would make all combats pointless.
@sleepinggiant4062 ok so you want to make healing matter and ruthlessly punish players for yoyoing up and down because as of right now in combat healing is pointless because it doesn't keep up with damage and isn't worth wasting the action because the monster will do more damage than you can heal in a single turn but you also think that healing keeping up with damage makes combat pointless? OK genius
On tracking ammo, I have notes.
1- you can retrieve arrows, nearly always. So the ammo counting isn't as harsh in traditional D&D. However...
2- it's a vital balance point for setting with bows and guns. You go with a sling if you want unlimited ammunition (seriously, have you ever NOT seen a small rock somewhere?) You go with a bow if you either trust you can finish every fight and can stay around to look for arrows, or you know how to survival craft. You go with a gun if you are confident that you will be near a place that sells bullets before they run out. You can't just find gunpowder and shells and lead laying around like you can sticks and rocks, you you need to measure average shots between towns, or else you may just be carrying a very expensive club for a while.
This is what old school play is all about - resource management. Track supplies, ammo, components... don't handwave encumbrance. 5e variant encumbrance is easy to use and makes players consider their gear. As for a bag of holding and portable hole - keep them rare. And money? Ha! Try living expenses and 1:1 time away from the table... that'll keep them poor. =)
This sounds like my kind of game haha. I love the grittiness of resource management
@@TheFantasyForge Are you close to the Ontario border? If so, come to Clericon in October, it's an Old School style mini-convention host by the Dungeon Minister! You can try lots of OSR type games! =)
0:13 Tobias the transdimensional tabby.
I use tokens to help keep track. Like toothpicks for arrows. Coloured counters for spell components. Etc etc.
This is an awesome idea. If you don't have a tiny quiver, you need to get one.
I’ve long embraced making my games more arduous. While I understand some players find counting arrows tedious; I challenge them to consider just how much flavor is removed from the game with all the stuff that simply gets hand waved away these days.
Honestly one of the major reasons Ranger isn’t played as much is because too many DMs hand wave away mechanics that would bring the class alive flavorfully.
I have three rest options: short/bivouac/long. Long can only be done in a town/city and takes a full 24 hours of non strenuous activity; they return to full health and all hit die/resources. Short rest is unchanged. Bivouac requires 6 hours of sleep, out of armor, they roll hit die to recover health, get half hit die back on success and recover half their level in spell slots back.
RAW combined with the power level of adventurers means the world’s just not that scary. So I am to make it scary through using tons of flavor, an interesting exploration system (with more discoveries/positive outcomes instead of just fail= lost), and by bringing forth intuitive “realism” (if one can imagine a magic filled world as “real”).
Honestly to those players who push back, give it a genuinely honest try. You never know what flavor it may return to the table. You may just fall in love with it.
One group I was playing with about a long time ago experimented with the idea of spellcasting causing exhaustion. The idea was to make PC's able to use spells more freely without the permanent setbacks and limitations that comes from using components and relying on rests for spell slots, but also to make spellcasters consider other means than just spells.
We effectively made spells component- and slot-free, but with the twist that each spell cast negatively affected both your ability to cast other spells, and potentially the effects of said spells. We did this partly by temporarily deducting stats from your character sheet, like WIS, DEX, CON and/or CHA. We essentially added a (-x) to it and that was it's "exhaustion modifier" or "ex-mod". The deducted value would steadily recover over time, or faster with LR/SR. The ex-mod only impacted spellcasting and effects, along with what the DM thought would be immersive. Immersion was the driving initiative of that group, which is probably why it worked so well for us.
If any of the temporary stats got below a certain point, then the PC would get random negative effects temporarily added due to severe exhaustion and mental strain. I remember we made up a list of effects, including migraine, nausea, hallucinations, paranoia, colourblindness, and so on. These were all rolled by dice unless the DM wanted to hand some specific ones out for some reason.
If you kept using spell upon spell upon spell regardless, then the character would eventually pass out from exhaustion. I remember we balanced it based both on PC and spell level, but I do not remember the math that went into it. I don't know if I have one of my old PC sheets from back then. If I do, then I'll edit this in future.
Did a campaign recently as a Ranger. I didn't buy any ammo and instead used monster parts and time to craft them, as well as creating and modifying armor/weapons with the same resources.
It was super fun, and I had to get creative with what monster parts to gather to save space and also be optimal for making things.
I definitely recommend bringing up resource management in a zero-sesh. I personally like the grittiness of it, but my players communicated that they already have to track resources in the real world lives and felt resentment about that level of realism in their escapism.
I play Pathfinder 2, which has the death saves, but regardless of if you are revived before death, you take "Wounds". These count against the number of death saves you get, and they stack through the combat. By RAW a Medicine check and 10 minutes gets rid of them, but my players agreed to a Homebrew that it takes a solid 24 hours of real true bed-rest to remove them. As a V2 to that rule, because it was becoming inconvenient to lose the meat shield for a day, I allow them, at a rest period, to convert the Wounds to a condition instead, usually related to the damage dealt that caused them to get the Wound. It takes away the immediate stakes of perma-death, but does add those mechanical consequences. And I personally like the idea of a party trudging into town after a month of adventuring, beat, bruised, broken, and taking necessary downtime to recover, and even celebrate the wins or mourn the losses.
Give players bag of holding, then have Inn keeper tell them about the legend of the "Bag Man."
@@Anthony_Culotta i used that already...
Tobias spotted at 1:38!
I really like the idea of making D&D more brutal, but remember to always discuss these with your players upfront! Not all of them are going to enjoy things like tracking food,water etc. One idea I saw for spell components which I'd love to try for a campaign at one point is making all spell components be consumed upon use, which would make casting spells another layer of resource tracking and strategy with your gold (until your players inevitably become richer than kings)
Here's how I make my DnD more "brutal" when it's what I amm try to do
1. Gritty Realism. Short rest is 8 hours, long rest is a week.
2. When a character falls to 0 HP, they get 1 level of exhaustion. To clear 1 level of exhaustion, you need a long rest.
3. Each long rest is downtime, and "lifestyle expenses" below modest hightens the risk of complications.
4. Maximum level is 6.
I love the realism rules in dnd they add more value to the actions you take
I enjoy the ruins of symbaroum 5e survival mechanics. Its a grittier setting and magic can corrupt you. They have mechanic for resting where you can short rest 1hd, or extended rest 3hd while your out and about. You can only long rest in safe spaces and it uses up 24 hours. Wich costs living expenses. And magic can corrupt you but in a way where its really manageable so constantly healing the party might push you past your limit.
@@deusvault5732 if you like the Symbaroum 5e mechanics, I highly recommend giving Symbaroum a shot!
Subscribed for the ad countdown bar alone!
hey I'm glad it helped! Literally the first video I used it on haha
Nothing I hate more than tracking arrows I shoot when the warlock next to me can ping eldrich blasts at every enemy all day long.
This kind of realism only works in a low magic setting, imo. Making the caster/martial divide larger because the ranger/rogue might run out of arrows isn't particularly fun.
One thing to make D&D combat tougher, and more brutal, is requiring the players to think. Give and clearly communicate a situation in which they know they can not win by force. Their abbilities will have to be used for delaying tactics, hiding, misdirection and straight up survival. An enemy they know they can't beat, they just have to hold on for a set amount of time or escape from.
Done that a few times, but the results have been mixed. Some like it, some hate it.
Here's a fun one for death - every death, subtract 1 constitution - then the player must roll under that con to revive. Simple, scary, effective - no more infinite lives.
Ohohohoooo I love this. Will implement into my new games haha
Good tips! Love them all but especially tracking ammo. Archers tend to have such redundant turns anyhow. Its good to make them be thinking of a back up plan when the arrows run out. Or if they don't, interacting with your map, throwing things they find at hand!
For my zombie campaign I have been trying out. To add a feature that if a PC is hit by a zombie then they need to do a CON saving throw. Or get inflected by the zombie virus which would give them a ticking clock
Sounds fun! What happens when the person dies/turns? New character?
@@TheFantasyForgeWell either they find someone who could use a wish spell to bring them back to life. As when a character is fully turn that is the only to save them, unless we count in the actions of great deities. But I will try to avoid having great deities show up in my campaigns.
So if they cannot be saved I would ask them to create a new character
4:52 - if you don't feel like homebrewing the healing/damage as mentioned in the video, or want some inspiration, DMG's got you covered - look at pages 266, 267, 272, 273 for optional rules
Oh wut I'm going to have to check it out!
One easy way to make D&D more brutal, and it comes in three letters: O. S. R.
My DM uses a d100 table for 0 hp injuries they can range from losing a tooth to getting decapitated (instant death), but recently, I got my spine crushed and was paralysed until we found a powerful healer.
holy cow how did you get around?
Greater restoration helps a lot. We're 4 sessions in so far and there wasn't one where I didn't have to roll on that table.
Dude... Try Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition. Those critical injuries tables for different body parts are amazing. Also diseases. Traumas. Like you know, a broken limb for 1d10+20 days and endurance test in the end to see if it recovered well.
Ooooo I havent played since I was in high school, I dont remember that. Good to know! I'm definitely going to take a look at that right now. Thank you!
Any ideas on how to not make counting amunition and tracking food unbearable? Simplicity is as cool as resource counting and I'm trying to make a good balance here
DnD Beyond gives you a quiver of 20 arrows; It's as easy as removing one each time you take a shot. Tracking food is way more frustrating, though, so I don't have any suggestions
I think Baldurs gate has a decent food system, though I've yet to play test it at the table, but planning to give it a go on my next campaign. Have food on a point system, 10 needed a day for each player. If they hunt, roll d20, d100, 2d100 depending on size of kill for how much usable meat there is (if they get a low roll, well narratively you could say the meat was too charred by the fireball cast, or the arrow burst an organ and infected it. Whatever)
Have players decide whether they want to track food individually or keep it in a single pack and decide who's carrying it. More convenient, but adds shananigans if that pack gets stolen.
Last, Good way to keep players invested is to make it mechanically effect them. Eating less rations, they can't travel as far in a day or if they feast the night before, give them inspiration to start of their day. Make it not just a chore, make it matter
One option for ammunition that I've seen is to not worry about tracking individual arrows, but tracking the battles. As an example, instead of saying you have 20 arrows and track each one individually, you can say you have "4 battles worth of arrows." Every time you use your bow in a battle, you tick that off.
It's not as accurate especially if you shoot one arrow one battle and 20 the next, but it makes it far less tedious.
@@gibbers2 nice, we can merge that with the other system I've seen - you roll d20 everytime you shoot an arrow and if you roll 1/2 you move to lower dice (d12, d8, d6 and so on) - we can make player do that every battle and bring up the target to let's say 1/2/3
Reintroducing TSR 1st and 2nd edition philosophy (Resource management (1-3) and judgement calls and in-game reasoning (4-5)) in 5e ... after WotC have thrown them out with 3rd edition since they were to bothersome and less fun... we have come full circle indeed
Goodberry and Druidcraft instantly invalidate the need for camp supplies.
For the cost of a cantrip and a 1st level spell you can feed up to 10 people for the entire day.
the bane of my existence
@@TheFantasyForge I keep these spells prepared because I'm a good druid.
I turn watermelons in to Goodberries because a) they are technically berries b) I find it amusing that you need to eat the whole berry in order to gain the benefits and it's hilarious to think of the entire party sitting around having a watermelon eating contest and c) I may be a good druid but I'm not a very good druid.
00:12 Fastest cat alive!
What do you mean starting to track arrows, bolts, components? It is the base game rule. No foken casuals in my groups. It is the key to keep your loot, food, ammos, components, coins and so on.
I cannot understand tables that don't do it
yeah my last group gave me grief for tracking stuff and ultimately I want them to have fun so I just let that part be a little more lax and we met in the middle but personally, I love that stuff
I love making my games brutal and sometimes border on unfair Obviously they know this and are prepared as it should be. However i have found that it makes my players more creative. I do recommend making dnd more brutal in a low magic situation similar to LOTR such that you might actually need to give these aspects greater importance
low magic is where it's at for me 😎
It’s easy, play PF2 instead.
Just play shadowdark or dcc 😏
Sounds more like how to make your game less fun and more to track every sh**
for some people tracking that stuff is a challenge and makes it more fun!
@@TheFantasyForge I strongly agree, its challenging in travel campaigns!