Comments/suggestions on Jester's rules (5e)

[alhoon]

It should be also noted there a note like "The DM should feel free to give debilating effects or conditions to characters to portray their harrowing experiences and traumatized minds when the players try to abuse the system instead of roleplay the flaws"

Hrm, what about an outbreak of madness? If they repress their madness (i.e. don't roleplay) their madness intensely manifests and they gain a short or long term madness. So if they roleplay (and gain inspiration) they can offset penalties.

Yes, but they can promptly ignore that too.

Flaws are kinda sorta a bonus, being an extra way of gaining inspiration. However, that is dependent on the player RPing the flaw to the satisfaction of the DM. If the player isn't choosing to self-hinder themselves enough to the DM's satisfaction, then no inspiration needs to be awarded.

Yes, and they can RP their other flaw for inspiration, essentially making the mind-breaking event that should be something the player dreaded, a trivial event and a note in the character sheet.

My fear is that it might make inspiration less appealing. Because the player might not want to roleplay a flaw or temptation they won't bother to do anything to gain inspiration that they will just lose anyway.
It's also adversarial. The DM is saying "you're roleplaying isn't good enough, so I'm taking something away. It generates a confrontation.

Yes, that's true it sounds adversarial. Bad example. I need to keep brainstorming.

So all in all, that dramatic event that broke the character's mind didn't have an adverse effect to the character.

The alternative is that the character is greatly penalized by the presence of the mirror. The DM is essentially imposing a giant penalty just on them.
They have to stop playing the game and choose to be bored or risk punitive action.
Plus, if I were DMing that session, because the character didn't risk anything by becoming fascinated at the very end, I wouldn't award inspiration.

It could be something small like " equivalent of stunned, save DC 11 each round" or something. Not worse than the DM adding a magical effect or lair power that targeted someone once a while. And it should be a big penalty, it's a broken mind after all. It should not be treated as "Yeah! Now I finally got madness! Please DM can I have it indefinite?" in my opinion.

The problem with the "I wouldn't award inspiration" part in my opinion is: you didn't award inspiration, the character wasn't hindered... so there's no difference from a sane character despite the tragic, mind breaking event that this character suffered.
Jester, I had players that would go detecting thoughts of undead to get madness. Dressing the powergaming as "my character tries to find the liberating power of madness to free his mind" or something.

[The Lesser Evil]

Regarding forced rping of madness, I seem to recall reading somewhere that roleplaying madness shouldn't ever be forced. If the players don't want to roleplay it, then the ability score penalties should be the only thing that's applied.
Edit:Regarding the previous editions' madness rules I mean.

[alhoon]

Yes, but there are no ability score penalties in 5e Madness. And what you recalled was from 3e Ravenloft that said more or less "RPing madness instead of penalties is near impossible. Apply the mechanical penalties described here" as a difference from the horror suggestion of "If the PC roleplays the effects of horror checks you could circumvent the mechanical penalties"

If indefinite madness had something like: "Disadvantage on wisdom (perception) checks if you have hallucinations" or "disadvantage on charisma (persuasion) checks if you're paranoid" it would be fine because the Madness wouldn't be a bonus but a penalty that comes with a slight bonus.

[Jester of the FoS]

Jester, I had players that would go detecting thoughts of undead to get madness. Dressing the powergaming as "my character tries to find the liberating power of madness to free his mind" or something.

That kind of player is a minority, a fringe element. I'm not sure we need to design the rules with a small group in mind, penalizing those who will play along.
Players like that will always cause problems, they'll always find ways of twisting the rules to their advantage. The best way to deal with them isn't to layer down penalties and restrictions but to empower DMs to work around them.

That said, we could add an "Emotional Distress" mechanic that is kinda sorta designed to be a not-RPing beat stick. Something that could be used when a player is not demonstrating their madness, responding to their temptation, acknowledging their flaws, or succumbing to their fears. But that also can be used in other situations.
After periods of prolonged stress the character has a mini-breakdown. Which makes sense when continually confronted by horror for several hours. So it's not *just* the not-RPing beat stick but something that can add to the tone of horror.
It's almost a counterpart to Fear and Horror.

[Jester of the FoS]

Emotional Distress
A counterpart to fear and horror, emotional distress is a short nervous breakdown in response to continual stress. A character experience emotional distress when in an unnatural or horrifying location for a prolonged time. They can also gain emotional distress if continually fighting temptation or madness: striving to present normalcy and control their symptoms.

In a regular campaign, the player characters are heroic adventures that are immune to the stress of days underground in the dark while constantly being assaulted by monsters. This is not necessarily true in a Ravenloft campaign. You can use emotional distress to draw attention to the hazards of continual exposure to terrifying locations or omnipresent danger, and emphasise the toll adventuring has on the psyche.

Resisting a emotional distress usually requires a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw. If your game includes the Sanity score (see chapter 9 of the Dungeon Master's Guide), a creature makes a Sanity saving throw instead. The DC of the saving throw usually starts lows, steadily increasing the longer the character is in the distressing area. On a failure the character gains a short-term madness. You might rule that characters suffering from an indefinite madness or resisting the effects of a fear, flaw, or dark shadow temptation have disadvantage on this saving throw.

[alhoon]

Ahem... that's still a bonus since it gives a short term madness. I would suggest an extra condition, like poisoned etc is.

Emotional distress:
* The emotionally distressed character has disadvantage on any ability check to interact socially with others
* The emotionally distressed character suffers from a short-term madness effect

[Jester of the FoS]

Ahem... that's still a bonus since it gives a short term madness. I would suggest an extra condition, like poisoned etc is.

Reread the short term madnesses. I'd prefer to be poisoned than half the stuff on that table.

[alhoon]

Now I would go your way actually. Being stunned for 1d10 minutes is kinda too harsh. I also read the long-term effects. They're "YIKES!" too... blinded? Long-term unconsciousness? Lost ability to speak? These are "Lost-one" effects.

Indefinite madness seems to be the only one that really hides a bonus in it.
In any case, I would make a 180-turn and say that resisting temptation, flaws etc and getting blind or in berserk rage is kinda too harsh. I still believe a mild condition is better.

BUT
After wasting a lot of your time and energy, till you brought to my attention that I didn't remember the madness effects... I decided that as indefinite madness goes, I can easily make rulings on the fly for a character that suffers from it.
Hallucinations? I may occasionally apply disadvantage on perceptions when needed. Delusional? That was always an RP thing. Whether you think your human character is a half-elf prince or not, it won't usually come into conversation when you buy milk or when you fight bugbears.

[Jester of the FoS]

The First Draft is Done and available HERE

Feel free to comment on any problem areas, typos, moments of brilliance, and the like.

[Jester of the FoS]

And now I have begun poking away at statblocks for monsters in a slow, mindnumbing process..

[Skyrock]

I'm happy with how it has turned out. The 5e adaption of RL is highly recommendable.

That being said, there are still some things that could be better:

Giomorgo
The bit about navigation, identifying plants and animals and starting fires always felt to me like a left-over from the triviality-obsessed 2E.
Why not simply proficiency in Survival and leave it at that?

Feat: Alchymist
5e got mostly rid of enabling feats (and the feat tax they effectively impose), so I am not a fan of reintroducing feat that allow you to do something that is else prohibited.
I'd rather make the concoctions part of the regular breadth of herbalist kit / alchemist's supplies / poisoner kit and rather add a different advantage to the alchemyst - maybe halved crafting costs for potions, expertise in the above tools, and/or the ability to identify potions without the need to rest or cast spells?

Dark Shadows
They are now better balanced than during the initial write-up, and more situational making them less of a must-have.

Still, Redhead looks extremely weak - Thaumaturgy is more a fluff cantrip than something players would want to waste their limited dark shadow on. Maybe a bonus on curses instead, or a brief Poisoned status representing an untrained evil eye?

Spell Alterations
Looks vague compared to the original RL books.
I also miss the bit about powerful necromancy - for a price.

Curses
Not sure if an attribute influenced proficiency check is the way to go. The irony of RL curses is that weeny commoners suffering severe grief are often better at it than mighty magic-users.
A chance of 5% (nat 20) and up in 5% steps also seems too generous when you roll for curses (which is what I would do, coming from an OSR roll & see what comes out of it angle).

Dark Powers
Could use more examples for appropriate disadvantages and advantages.

[alhoon]

Added a werewolf cleric (3rd lvl caster) to the monsters, Talons and Talon sergeants.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm happy with how it has turned out. The 5e adaption of RL is highly recommendable.

Thank you! I appreciate feedback.

Giomorgo
The bit about navigation, identifying plants and animals and starting fires always felt to me like a left-over from the triviality-obsessed 2E.
Why not simply proficiency in Survival and leave it at that?

It is a little finicky, but I like to view it as akin to dwarven stonecunning. Giomorgo aren't good at all forms of survival (like tracking) but exceptional in certain areas. Really, it's just navigation and IDing plants (half of all Survival checks) with fire starting being a nod to the old half-Vistani ability.
Plus, when you give a PC an ability like "you're really good at starting fires" then they'll find a way to use that ability.

Feat: Alchymist
5e got mostly rid of enabling feats (and the feat tax they effectively impose), so I am not a fan of reintroducing feat that allow you to do something that is else prohibited.
I'd rather make the concoctions part of the regular breadth of herbalist kit / alchemist's supplies / poisoner kit and rather add a different advantage to the alchemyst - maybe halved crafting costs for potions, expertise in the above tools, and/or the ability to identify potions without the need to rest or cast spells?

It is a bit of an odd feat. 5e feats do tend to be your "thing" and being an alchemist is a great idea for a "thing". But it's hard to present without giving a long list of formulas and tonics (or assuming magic item creation, which is kinda sorta optional).
Proficiency in herbalist/poisoner's kit might be a nice bonus to give the feat some extra *oomf* though.

Dark Shadows
They are now better balanced than during the initial write-up, and more situational making them less of a must-have.

Still, Redhead looks extremely weak - Thaumaturgy is more a fluff cantrip than something players would want to waste their limited dark shadow on. Maybe a bonus on curses instead, or a brief Poisoned status representing an untrained evil eye?

Redhead was traditionally some minor magic so a non-offensive cantrip made sense. I suppose mage hand might work as well.
What if the duration was longer?

Spell Alterations
Looks vague compared to the original RL books.
I also miss the bit about powerful necromancy - for a price.

Spell alterations were always problematic. It was annoying to have to look up individual spells to see if they were modified, and keeping a list current was time consuming busy work.

Making necromancy more potent is certainly something I should consider again.

Curses
Not sure if an attribute influenced proficiency check is the way to go. The irony of RL curses is that weeny commoners suffering severe grief are often better at it than mighty magic-users.
A chance of 5% (nat 20) and up in 5% steps also seems too generous when you roll for curses (which is what I would do, coming from an OSR roll & see what comes out of it angle).

I tend to default to the "DM decides if it would be appropriate" school less than the "roll and see what happens" school of thought. When I was rolling for random curses, I'd either be disappointing by the result or satisfied: either way, I knew what I wanted the result to be. But I can see the appeal of stronger random rolls.

I'll give the curse section a once over and see if it can be punched up.

Dark Powers
Could use more examples for appropriate disadvantages and advantages

There could *always* be more.
With 8 examples, I think there's more than any official book.

[Zilfer]

I think the 3.5 book had like 6-7 examples so it's not much larger i think.... XD *goes back to hidey hole*

[Skyrock]

Redhead was traditionally some minor magic so a non-offensive cantrip made sense. I suppose mage hand might work as well.
What if the duration was longer?

One of my 3.x characters was a Mystic Theurge being able to heal and to magic-missile from the get-go, thanks to being a Sorcerer with the Redhead (Cure Minor Wounds) feat... Far from being overpowered, but also far from being minor on 1st level

More duration would be an improvement, but something with direct mechanical oomph (opposed to the fluffy Thaumaturgy) would still be superior.

Making necromancy more potent is certainly something I should consider again.

I'd appreciate it Powerful necromancy for a price was always a distinctive feature of RL.

I tend to default to the "DM decides if it would be appropriate" school less than the "roll and see what happens" school of thought. When I was rolling for random curses, I'd either be disappointing by the result or satisfied: either way, I knew what I wanted the result to be. But I can see the appeal of stronger random rolls.

I'll give the curse section a once over and see if it can be punched up.

For me as an OSR GM, there are no "right" or "wrong" instances of cursing effecting and not effecting - only surprises that nudge the game into unexpected directions

I also wouldn't mind to bust out percentiles for extra granularity. Attempted curses are rare enough with their low success chances (usually last ditch efforts and efforts during highly dramatic moments), and they may also be helpful for GMs of a more fudgy storytelling school as a gauge for what would be likely and what wouldn't.

There could *always* be more.
With 8 examples, I think there's more than any official book.

Touché

Still, the paying customer demands that... OH **** I DIDN'T ACTUALLY PAY FOR THAT NETBOOK