Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Novama Apr 16, 2015 14:28:03	I have a group that opted for a very video game style of play. 1. healing surges are available in combat 2. short rests restore hit die 3. long rests restore all hit die 4. long rests are full heals 5. short rests are 5 minutes 6. long rests are 1 hour 7. they have access to hero points 8. They have access to option 2 of the plot points 9. They want to try the honor/sanity stats 10. Will try the variant that allows them to hit without actually hitting target dc if they are 'close' and take a consequence 11. Will be subject to fear and horror mechanics   With the above, being full health before every fight will be common. Fights that take the group down to next to nothing can be recovered from in an hour. Without lingering injuries or system shock, they are regenerating meat sacks swinging swords. Very much like a video game.   The dark souls games are a gritty, dark fantasy serious. Players run around in medieval type gear and abilities and fight monsters. Healing tends to be readily available, and resting fully recovers the character. The balance I want to struck in our campaign should be similar to those games. The way dark souls type cames counter easy healing/recovery is to make each monster capable of killing you if you are careless. However, there is varienty. Some monsters really are easy to kill assuming you are not careless with them.   The party is level 4 with 4 - 7 players What would be some suggestions for monster/setting/or scenario that would counter the player's gross amount of healing and punish careless behavior?   My first thought would be to just bump up the average damage per round a monster could do by a cr or 2. It would not make them anymore difficult to kill, but they will get more damage out before they go making each hit a regretable instance and will encourage them to avoid getting hit as much as possible.
#2 cowleymen Apr 17, 2015 1:20:50	you could up damage die by one, or add another +2 to their damage. I think it works to be about equal amount of increase damage to each one. Also, you can increase number of monsters, and dont feel bad about increasing encounter difficulty. THey only other thing is, CASTING! THe warlock will be at a huge advantage, as will the battle master fighter. hell, If i was a battle master, I would spend all my die in every fight. It takes five minutes to short rest. Same with warlock. They will be casting 2 spells, every fight, at level 2 now. I expect to see a lot of Shatter.   Regular spell casters will be hurting though. They dont have the resources to cast spells that often. Arcane recovery for cleric, wizard, druid is very limited. While melee type characters are getting a huge boost in survivablitiy with their new healing, spellslingers dont really benefit be cause of low die vavlue, and trying to avoid combat. Also, Moon Druid is now damn near unkillable.    I would love to hear the results of your campagin though!
#3 transcendantviewer Apr 17, 2015 3:05:44	Cowleymen brings up a good point. The variant rules for the "All HD refunded after Long Rest" and "Healing Surges" help front-line Fighters a lot more than they do Spellcasters, and if you're upping the difficulty that much to counteract the increased player strength, casters will not be having a good time. Warlocks will be the exception. As he said, the Moon Druid is probably neigh invincible. If everyone's running Martial characters or Warlocks, the system works. Personally, with regards to casters, I think you'd need to do something a bit differently if you're giong to be making the game anything like Darksouls/Bloodborne. Maybe allow them to pick a number of spell slots with a combined value equal to or less than their class level to regain after taking a Short Rest. This means that a 10th level Wizard could regain a 5th level spell slot, a 3rd level spell slot, and a 2nd level spell slot using this ability. Let them do this after each Short Rest, regardless of class. Though Half-casters, like Paladins and Druids should regain spell slots equal to half their level, rounded up. Same for classes that take casting subclasses (I.E. Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight). Sadly, this also means you have to assume characters will be entering every fight with almost maximum resources, so to challenge them, you'll need to make every fight either a boss fight, allowing them to rest periodically, or make battles exceptionally often as to prevent them their needed rests.
#4 abs1nth Apr 17, 2015 3:35:01	Dark Souls 1, at least, would actually be more like: spending a hit die takes an action. There are no short rests. Taking a long rest for 8 hours restores all hit dice.
#5 Ralif_Redhammer Apr 17, 2015 6:56:35	I'd just replace short rests with Estus Flasks.   And don't forget, a long rest resurrects all non-boss monsters.
(Reply to #5) HermanTheWize	Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
#7 Novama Apr 17, 2015 7:57:21	Someone suggested that long rests resurrect all monsters on field (bosses/npc's excluded). I have considered this and agree with it. Someone mentioned the farming....however, we are using the milestone system for leveling, so they will not level no matter how much they grind monsters in an area. They may be able to stock pile gold and wealth, however, buying anything other than regular gear and weapons is not available.   Raising the damage die could be good. I have also considered what others had mentioned of making each fight similar to a boss fight. At level 4 and with 5 members, their xp budget is 1800 which would allow me to throw several nasty and dangerous things at them and goes well with boss fights. I can vary that up with easier monsters leading rediculous sums of lesser monsters.   Our party is mainly melee types, however, the idea that they recover spell slots more frequently as spell casters sounds like a good idea. However, i worry that if I let mages recover spells like fighters, that the fighter tanking in front will not feel as good in his role since he is taking all the abuse and given no clear edge over the caster except more health.    I need suggestions for plausible elements/moments/scenarios that would invoke fear or horror roles One scenario I thought of would be the party entering a room to find gnolls and packlords feasting on humanoid body parts. Another would be a room smeared with human/humanoid remains that would make a character question would could and/or would do such a thing. There's also the idea that I send them against a boss level monster that's clearly powerful enough to kill them all if they let it. I believe the fear mechanic naturally works with this one as a defense mechanism against party death to let them know when they are heading into something rough
#8 transcendantviewer Apr 17, 2015 22:37:01	You could change my recommendation from earlier to allowing spellcasters to spend hit dice to regain levels of spell slots in addition to hit points. That way, they'll have a limited recall, but still feel helpful. Basically a Wizard spends 5 of their hit dice after a Short Rest to regain 5 levels of spell slots, so they could refund two 1st level slots, and a 3rd level slot in addition to hit points, but they'll be down those hit dice when they need them. (I.E. Healing Surge).
(Reply to #8) Danny_Montanny	transcendantviewer wrote:
(Reply to #9) transcendantviewer	Danny_Montanny wrote:
#11 Novama Apr 20, 2015 7:19:10	Ran our first session.   The results: 1. party is mainly physical with a fighter, paladin, ranger, fighter as a frontline and a druid and barbarian. 2. the party options that granted healing in combat were a great help to those that chose to use it 3. A few of the party members required the use of hero points to keep their characters from dying on death throws 4. they triumphed over the enemy with 2 of the 6 unconscious from damage and stabalization, 2 dead after choosing not to use hero points to save themselves, and 2 alive 5. With druid was noticeably light on spells after the first encounter, opting use cantrips sparingly as opposed to her higher level spells. 6. Plot points were used that led to 2 more character deaths.   Had the plot points not been involved, the session went as planned. The fight was tough, foolishness was punished, but they prevailed through a little heroism and working together. The result would have been all but recoverable from save for those that chose to die.   The noticeable problems I see currently are that casters will be out of spells within the first couple encounters. Since long rests will reset the map with monsters, the caster classes will be considerably weakened in usefulness as the party ventures on as predicted. However, it won't be as noticeable in early levels because their cantrips can dish out comparitive damage and effects.   One varient in the books is spell points. It converts a characters spell slots into a pool of points and puts a point cost on each spell per level. This allows them to cast considerably more lower level spells at the cost of the price they would have used to cast the higher tier spells.    I do not feel right about allowing short rests to bring back spell slots since it could be used to get rid of a need for long rests all together.   Any thoughts on high I can address the magic issue further?