Fear, Horror and Madness checks conversion to 5e?

[DavidMalan]

Hey ya'll. I'm preparing for my upcoming 5e Ravenloft Campaign and I was wondering have you guys ever converted the fear, horror and madness checks to 5e? If so what have you done to implement them in your games? I'm mostly interested in the mechanical aspect of the above checks, as the roleplaying aspect is subject to context and situation, but advice on the latter will be highly appreciated as well.

My target is to preserve the dread aspect of RL, and show my players how the setting is supposed to function properly outside of the kinda bland iteration of CoS, which is the only experience they had with the setting so far.


For one, I'm thinking of implementing the fear check number displayed on classes in the Domains of Dread book, as a situational bonus (spellcasters get said bonus on supernatural related checks, martials get it in gory-practical related checks and so on) that will consist of half their proficiency bonus (rounded up). As of DC calculations, I don't really like the fear and horror fixed table checks and I assume an estimate based on a formula of 8+ a mild, moderate, severe modifier+ situational adv. or dis. would suffice but I'm still not sure. As of Madness checks I'm inclined to let them as they are, high DCs for threatening conditions seem appropriate.

Now, in regards to check modifiers. This is kinda tricky and I find myself baffled as to how I could convert this mechanic properly. I'm thinking that for fear and horror checks, if a relative or party member is threatened this would be a roll with advantage which roughly translates to a +5 in 5e. Same as the -4 penalty it would tranlsate in disadvantage.

So what's your thoughts guys?

[alhoon]

I mostly use the rules for Short, long and indefinite madness of D&D next with an extra flair from the old checks to make it thematic. I also use the rules of "From the Abyss", an awesome adventure, for lingering effects and how you move from short to long to indefinite madness.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I mostly use the rules for Short, long and indefinite madness of D&D next with an extra flair from the old checks to make it thematic. I also use the rules of "From the Abyss", an awesome adventure, for lingering effects and how you move from short to long to indefinite madness.

I believe the best rules for madness are in 3e Ravenloft Campaign Setting, they are the most (logical?) or the closest I've seen to (reality?) in D&D.
The rules in Out of the Abyss are too simplified, the brain is not a simple thing.

[Muggs]

I ran a earlier paranoia themed game where instead of using the Sanity system from the DMG I flipped it for a Insanity Score of 10 + the number of phobia's they had.

Each PC's in my campaign started with one phobia (ideally something silly). When they were exposed to the phobia it caused them to need to make a WIZ save vs Insanity
When they dropped to 0 they picked a new phobia and the DC ticked up.
This meant that if a PC died a lot they might end up with a 'impossible' DC and so the players needed to be careful to balance progress, risk and fear.

If they passed the wisdom save they were okay, if they failed they were under the fear effect and gained a temporary level of exhaustion for 10 minutes.
They could remove the exhaustion by resting in a safe place for 10 minutes but if they managed to get to 3 levels this changed and they now had to follow the normal rules for getting rid of them.

at 6 their mind snapped and rather then die of exhaustion they reverted to a vegetative state where they no longer responded, took actions, thought etc. as their mind was now gone.

This worked out well as it gave rules for things getting progressively harder as the PC's mental state got worse and that there was a 'cascade' effect that not paying attention would quickly have a PC slip from 'just a little mad' to near gone and PC's had to actively worry about and manage their character's mental health.

As a nicer version you could do the same but impose madness on each level instead of exhaustion, in this case they were in aura where they auto-stablised on 0 so exhaustion was used to ensure there was still a way for PC's to 'die' even if death itself wasn't possible.