This series has been speaking to my lack of interest in the 5e system. It's nice to hear someone with great ideas about how to make the campaign world more interesting and engaging rather than how to make a character choose the most optimized abilities or whatever. The videos on how to make enemies formidable is a deitysend for those of us working with longer work hours but who still wish they could just dig down and ponder what makes a ghost meaningful. Keep up the amazing work, please and thank you
Ben i can't tell you how much i look forward to you'r series, i feel like my game has been upgraded tenfolds by you'r suggestions. My creative juices are flowing again, and my homegame is so much better for it. Thank you for you'r hard work and passion for this nerdy game.
One of my old pc had a lightning scar on their back from... well, geting hit by lightning. Controlled by a druid. Also two axe wounds on his shoulder. I miss playing Fyltyr, the Elturelian hellraiser.
I'm a big fan of the suggestion to expand the grevious wounds table, I definitely agree with the more is better attitude to it, to make each one feel unique. I would advocate for sure, occasionally not rolling for it if the attack was more specific on its actions, and just identifying a suitable option from the table (Dael's version will help a lot with this).
What is with youtube suddenly telling me about variant rest rules so intensly, this is the fourth one since tuesday that's popped up. Does sound interesting, though, not going to lie
Have to say, I love all of your home rules here--the 36-hour-in-place-of-safety long rest (also makes characters look for inns and the like, which can lead to interesting social encounters or make for easier, more natural ways to help direct clues and plot hooks), the healing of grievous wounds with a trained doctor during a long rest (I love "plague doctor" and similar imagery, and the "medical" theme in general really fits with a Gothic atmosphere, and this kind of rule helps to give a mechanical underpinning to naturally draw the PCs into connection with this milieu), and the One D&D exhaustion rules. You really hit on it when you pointed out that the fundamental issue with rules like this is that they should provide that darker flavor of lingering cost to the characters without being harsh enough that the _players_ try their hardest not to engage with them at all. It's a delicate balancing act to let the players feel their weight without making them feel like they're an obstacle to having fun.
I love “Simple Exhaustion” more playable, & more applications. Such as 1 exhaustion when you recover from stunned, paralyzed, poisoned, unconscious. Suffering -1 is a great design tool that can be put anywhere. But because i had it out so often, i allow short rests to reduce 1, every night of sleep to roll a HD to reduce a number equal to the roll. I like quick rests as a third option. I like wounds/injuries on zero hp, while on crits i use special effects caused by the damage type- nothing op, just mechanical flavors that last a round. So a crit is more than just more dmg.
I am glad that there are other DM that are willing to let the consquences of dice rolls or player actions stand. I have been playing D&D since 1984 character actions, consquences, and deaths are just part of the game. I feel like 5E as much as I like it nerfed these things for what ever reason.
Been lurking on your channel for a while. Love your ideas, and the suggested mechanics are always well thought out and easy to implement. Keep up the great work!
I like these ideas of altenative rest rules! and would like to say that, if the DM is changing the rules to this, I think it could be done even if the campaign is already of! the change of scenery might change the conditions of a rest for a while! just remember to inform the players that the long rest is longer "at this point"!
I love these videos but especially appreciate how you add in suggestions from your own home game rather than just using the Grim Hollow rules straight up. Keep 'em coming!
Generally I run the following things: Death saving throw failures only go away when you finish a short or a long rest. You take 1 level of exhaustion when you fall unconscious from hitting 0 hit points. You recover no hit points on long rest, but all hit dice are recovered (and can expend them to heal). Short rests outside of protected areas take 8 hours, in a town or similarly protected shelter it's 1 hour. Long rests outside of protected areas take a week, in a town or similarly protected shelter it's 8 hours. Hit dice are a resource for very powerful (artifact grade) magic items crafted specifically for each party member, in addition to a major hp recovery resource.
I have been using a slightly altered form of the Grim Hollows rest rules in my campaign for a year now that are a bit more lenient. Instead of only getting back spells and hit dice on long rests, short rests in my campaign give back 1 hit dice (that has to be used if the character isn't at full hp) and one spell slot of each available spell. In addition we added an extra 4 hour action that the characters can do to get back certain Class Features that'd only come back on long rests. For wounds we've been using the ones in the DMG but after a recent fight where a bunch of zombies happened to roll several crits, which would've taken the PCs several legs and some other stuff, we've changed it to exhaustion, since we're also using the OneDnD rules for it. What I want to try as well are the Dying Rules which were suggested in the recent XP to Level 3 video since those interact nicely with the exhaustion rules and give the GM a bit more breathing room for encounters
'' It's just a flesh wound '' - The ''invisible'' black knight Level Up A5e have some cool ideas for fatigue/strife and using the need of heaven for long rest .
I have to shout out the Grit & Glory homebrew I've used from reddit, that has wounds list based on what damage you took along with a great many other optional rules.
This is the problem when HP doesn't equal actual physical damage. I was in a 5E game some years ago, and I was the only one using the scar rules in the DMG. My Svartalfin lost a couple of fingers from his left hand, and received such scarring to his face he got a bonus on Intimidation checks. It was great fun.
I'm running a Horror DnD campaign, and I decided to make long rest happen every 3 short rests, which each take 8 hours, so most of the time they get a long rest every three days. It takes a little bit of tracking, but it's been very enjoyable and really adds an element of threat and realism. Long Rests also don't heal you unless you use hit dice, but also give you hit dice back like usual. Since we started at level 1, and I anticipated the possibility of them expending all their hit dice, I also put in passive healing that happens every morning, which is 2 + CON modifier, unless you have levels of exhaustion.
Protracted Long Rest does Help, But I stole something from ‘Outbreak Undead’ to help me spice up a round of Dragon Heist; ‘Wound Values’. In Outbreak, you take damage from D6, but you’ll only have 6-9 health ever, with levels of how wounded you are. I tool that idea, of having a ‘six point’ wound, or ‘a four point and two point’ wound, that they could apply healing to separately. And you can’t divide up healing, or mix and match; if you heal five points from Cure Wounds, you can’t heal a six point wound, and you have to choose between a four or two point wound what needs recovering. The fact that one of them was a Paladin became a literal God-Send, being able to mend multiple minor wounds or wipe away a single grievous wound the others could only hope to heal. That, and the players got really friendly with the local herbalist, and picked up Chef, Healer, and Herbalism Tool Proficiencies to help wash away minor injuries.
I like the idea that magical healing is an accelerated mystical shortcut that takes from the healed party's body to circumvent the normal time required to heal an injury. As a result, every time a character receives any form of magical healing from any source - spells, healing potions, anything like that - they have to take a DC15 constitution save. On a success they shrug off the consequences of the accelerated healing with no ill effects this time, but on a failure they suffer an immediate level of exhaustion - that can only be removed on a successful long rest - as the unnaturally accelerated healing takes its toll on their body. Add in rules for making it harder or impossible to long rest in the wilderness or in other perilous locations, and the players have to weigh the cost/benefit of magical short cuts to healing wounds. It is a simple and to the point way of making magical healing more of a risk if more complex systems are not your liking.
In my heroic fantasy games I basically use a more minor form of grievous wounds that has no gameplay impact and is purely flavour. In my current campaign we have a monk with a scar on the shoulder from a gunshot wound and a fighter with lacerations on the collarbone area from a bearded devil who crit him while he was under hold person.
Warlocks are massively nerfed if any dm decides to run 8 hour short rests not to mention other casters struggling even harder for the long rests. Also while it is said that its not to punish the players some dms won't care and actually use it cause their tired of the party throwing their spells willy nilly.
This series has been speaking to my lack of interest in the 5e system. It's nice to hear someone with great ideas about how to make the campaign world more interesting and engaging rather than how to make a character choose the most optimized abilities or whatever. The videos on how to make enemies formidable is a deitysend for those of us working with longer work hours but who still wish they could just dig down and ponder what makes a ghost meaningful. Keep up the amazing work, please and thank you
Ben i can't tell you how much i look forward to you'r series, i feel like my game has been upgraded tenfolds by you'r suggestions. My creative juices are flowing again, and my homegame is so much better for it. Thank you for you'r hard work and passion for this nerdy game.
Thanks so much! We love hearing that folks are getting use out of these videos. 😄
@@GhostfireGaming They're excellent! Long time Lorecast listener, discovered these recently and have basically binged them all 😅
One of my old pc had a lightning scar on their back from... well, geting hit by lightning. Controlled by a druid.
Also two axe wounds on his shoulder.
I miss playing Fyltyr, the Elturelian hellraiser.
I'm a big fan of the suggestion to expand the grevious wounds table, I definitely agree with the more is better attitude to it, to make each one feel unique.
I would advocate for sure, occasionally not rolling for it if the attack was more specific on its actions, and just identifying a suitable option from the table (Dael's version will help a lot with this).
What is with youtube suddenly telling me about variant rest rules so intensly, this is the fourth one since tuesday that's popped up.
Does sound interesting, though, not going to lie
Have to say, I love all of your home rules here--the 36-hour-in-place-of-safety long rest (also makes characters look for inns and the like, which can lead to interesting social encounters or make for easier, more natural ways to help direct clues and plot hooks), the healing of grievous wounds with a trained doctor during a long rest (I love "plague doctor" and similar imagery, and the "medical" theme in general really fits with a Gothic atmosphere, and this kind of rule helps to give a mechanical underpinning to naturally draw the PCs into connection with this milieu), and the One D&D exhaustion rules. You really hit on it when you pointed out that the fundamental issue with rules like this is that they should provide that darker flavor of lingering cost to the characters without being harsh enough that the _players_ try their hardest not to engage with them at all. It's a delicate balancing act to let the players feel their weight without making them feel like they're an obstacle to having fun.
Best D&D channel.
I love “Simple Exhaustion” more playable, & more applications.
Such as 1 exhaustion when you recover from stunned, paralyzed, poisoned, unconscious.
Suffering -1 is a great design tool that can be put anywhere. But because i had it out so often, i allow short rests to reduce 1, every night of sleep to roll a HD to reduce a number equal to the roll.
I like quick rests as a third option.
I like wounds/injuries on zero hp, while on crits i use special effects caused by the damage type- nothing op, just mechanical flavors that last a round. So a crit is more than just more dmg.
I would love for you guys to stream a Grim Hollow game or one shot to show off these mechanics and some of the subclasses/ transformations.
I am glad that there are other DM that are willing to let the consquences of dice rolls or player actions stand. I have been playing D&D since 1984 character actions, consquences, and deaths are just part of the game. I feel like 5E as much as I like it nerfed these things for what ever reason.
Been lurking on your channel for a while. Love your ideas, and the suggested mechanics are always well thought out and easy to implement. Keep up the great work!
Excellent video!
Great advice to expand the lingering injuries table.
Cheers
Love the video 🎉 I am using all your tips for my dark fantasy campaign!
Hey Ben! Love the video and your dark fantasy series! We will be running a campaign soon in the Grimhollow setting and im super excited 🎉
I like these ideas of altenative rest rules! and would like to say that, if the DM is changing the rules to this, I think it could be done even if the campaign is already of!
the change of scenery might change the conditions of a rest for a while!
just remember to inform the players that the long rest is longer "at this point"!
I love these videos but especially appreciate how you add in suggestions from your own home game rather than just using the Grim Hollow rules straight up.
Keep 'em coming!
You are the first one that spoke on the side of the ST in thees rolls that i herd :) good vid, Thanks
Generally I run the following things:
Death saving throw failures only go away when you finish a short or a long rest.
You take 1 level of exhaustion when you fall unconscious from hitting 0 hit points.
You recover no hit points on long rest, but all hit dice are recovered (and can expend them to heal).
Short rests outside of protected areas take 8 hours, in a town or similarly protected shelter it's 1 hour.
Long rests outside of protected areas take a week, in a town or similarly protected shelter it's 8 hours.
Hit dice are a resource for very powerful (artifact grade) magic items crafted specifically for each party member, in addition to a major hp recovery resource.
I have been using a slightly altered form of the Grim Hollows rest rules in my campaign for a year now that are a bit more lenient. Instead of only getting back spells and hit dice on long rests, short rests in my campaign give back 1 hit dice (that has to be used if the character isn't at full hp) and one spell slot of each available spell. In addition we added an extra 4 hour action that the characters can do to get back certain Class Features that'd only come back on long rests.
For wounds we've been using the ones in the DMG but after a recent fight where a bunch of zombies happened to roll several crits, which would've taken the PCs several legs and some other stuff, we've changed it to exhaustion, since we're also using the OneDnD rules for it.
What I want to try as well are the Dying Rules which were suggested in the recent XP to Level 3 video since those interact nicely with the exhaustion rules and give the GM a bit more breathing room for encounters
Such good content
i think i would use this for a "fear & hunger" inspired one shot
'' It's just a flesh wound '' - The ''invisible'' black knight
Level Up A5e have some cool ideas for fatigue/strife and using the need of heaven for long rest .
I have to shout out the Grit & Glory homebrew I've used from reddit, that has wounds list based on what damage you took along with a great many other optional rules.
This is the problem when HP doesn't equal actual physical damage. I was in a 5E game some years ago, and I was the only one using the scar rules in the DMG. My Svartalfin lost a couple of fingers from his left hand, and received such scarring to his face he got a bonus on Intimidation checks. It was great fun.
Witcher Watch -- Ben’s Shirt
Excellent spot! 😉
I'm running a Horror DnD campaign, and I decided to make long rest happen every 3 short rests, which each take 8 hours, so most of the time they get a long rest every three days. It takes a little bit of tracking, but it's been very enjoyable and really adds an element of threat and realism. Long Rests also don't heal you unless you use hit dice, but also give you hit dice back like usual. Since we started at level 1, and I anticipated the possibility of them expending all their hit dice, I also put in passive healing that happens every morning, which is 2 + CON modifier, unless you have levels of exhaustion.
Man this channel has way to low visibility. So good. I love these videos. Helps a lot
Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for the comment.
Protracted Long Rest does Help, But I stole something from ‘Outbreak Undead’ to help me spice up a round of Dragon Heist; ‘Wound Values’.
In Outbreak, you take damage from D6, but you’ll only have 6-9 health ever, with levels of how wounded you are. I tool that idea, of having a ‘six point’ wound, or ‘a four point and two point’ wound, that they could apply healing to separately. And you can’t divide up healing, or mix and match; if you heal five points from Cure Wounds, you can’t heal a six point wound, and you have to choose between a four or two point wound what needs recovering.
The fact that one of them was a Paladin became a literal God-Send, being able to mend multiple minor wounds or wipe away a single grievous wound the others could only hope to heal. That, and the players got really friendly with the local herbalist, and picked up Chef, Healer, and Herbalism Tool Proficiencies to help wash away minor injuries.
I like the idea that magical healing is an accelerated mystical shortcut that takes from the healed party's body to circumvent the normal time required to heal an injury. As a result, every time a character receives any form of magical healing from any source - spells, healing potions, anything like that - they have to take a DC15 constitution save. On a success they shrug off the consequences of the accelerated healing with no ill effects this time, but on a failure they suffer an immediate level of exhaustion - that can only be removed on a successful long rest - as the unnaturally accelerated healing takes its toll on their body. Add in rules for making it harder or impossible to long rest in the wilderness or in other perilous locations, and the players have to weigh the cost/benefit of magical short cuts to healing wounds. It is a simple and to the point way of making magical healing more of a risk if more complex systems are not your liking.
In my heroic fantasy games I basically use a more minor form of grievous wounds that has no gameplay impact and is purely flavour. In my current campaign we have a monk with a scar on the shoulder from a gunshot wound and a fighter with lacerations on the collarbone area from a bearded devil who crit him while he was under hold person.
Warlocks are massively nerfed if any dm decides to run 8 hour short rests not to mention other casters struggling even harder for the long rests.
Also while it is said that its not to punish the players some dms won't care and actually use it cause their tired of the party throwing their spells willy nilly.