Love how Brennan and the Coach are squeezing PF2e inspired/popularized ideas (degrees of success) for homebrew/original rules for their games 😎

A cool rule I've implemented in death saves: life flashing before your eyes. Before making a death save, what flashes through your mind? What moment do you remember? What do you regret? They have to say it and explain the moment. One did it so well, discussing how he met his wife, I gave him advantage on the death save AND HE ROLLED A 20! Great moment, great flavor mechanic, can't recommend it enough.

I found this video very inspiring, particularly the big send-off idea. Really like the idea of not being unconscious during death saves, but doing a Boromir instead.

3rd rule is amazing. I had a similar thing but was too clunky. This is simple and easy to remember.

This video just really makes the imperfections of 5e all the more glaring - my group has made the switch to Pathfinder 2e after all of the PR Kerfluffles and there's so much of this in 2e.

I run a similar rule where if you take a single instance of damage that exceeds half your maximum hit point total then you take a point of exhaustion. No saving throw because watching for when the damage exceeds that threshhold is already enough bookkeeping.

I'm personally not going to implement these to my current campaign, but I love hearing about homebrew rules. These migh find some use in a different campaign!

Hyyyyyype!!!! Love these break downs!!!!

"Death Blow Rule". I'm already invested by the word itself

"I've taught you all that I can go on without me"... the general that will always be missed.

I love the idea for the first rule, however I just came up with an alternative that is still somewhat brutal but: When a creature gets hit with a nat 20 they have to do a deathblow saving throw (exactly as you described), on a fail they take a fail to their death saving throws until the next long rest. If they fail by 5 or more they take 2 fails, on a nat 1 they die. Essentially, if they get crit 3 times, they die regardless of hit points.

Death saves not resetting comes from Pathfinder 2e… in a way. After dropping to zero, you get one level of “wounded”. So when you drop again, you start at dying 2. Wounded resets on a long rest. If you drop 3 times, the next time you hit 0 you’re dead. That simple mechanic makes not wanting to drop to zero vital.

These rules are a little too hardcore for my current players, but if I had the right play group some of them would be fun. I like the called shots mechanic. The idea of it is similar to D&D 3.5 where they would take a negative to a roll if they want the target a body part and which body part determined how much of a negative to the roll they got

A video on the Big Send Off is a good idea.

My solution for healing economy is let the players health go into the negative. Healing them only brings them back up if it brings their health back to the positive. The medicine check DC can then be based on the negative health.

Love your channel

Nerd chills are a thing for DMs! 🤓🧐

Ho Coach! I was lately wondering about some rule like this Half Damage Rule and maybe it would be even more hardcore or emerge into a game if you would give a player first death save on third exhustion. And combine it with your Proper Send Off Rule. For example: Player have 80 HP. Hit for 40. Fail of Save = exhaustion. Hit for 20. Fail = exhaustion. Hit for 10. Fail = exhaustion + 1 Saving Death Roll. Fail Saving. Have only 2 left. Hit for 5. Fail = exhaustion + 1 Saving Death Roll. If he roll 1 it will be to fails and death.

We use Max damage Crit rules in our campaign. So you take the Maximum amount of damage on the second dice roll. Deathblow would make every crit a kill every time. Lol. Last session I crit with my Zealot/Rune Knight. I did 64 Damage in a single attack at level 7. DC 32? Nah. That would be instant death. Lol. Not to mention any of these other rules.

The biggest things with these rules is you need a table of players that are into it and as well are tactical min max style players if you want the party to be able to succeed. If you do fantastic. I would love to be a player at this kind of a table. However the players I have that love RP don't get super min max tactical so I play a middle ground as DM. But I as a player grew up on 2e and 3.5. Loved Tomb of Horrors as a player.

Hardcore, brutal criticals, girt and grime. Please and thank you.

I've never had the chance to properly play a campaign (both times I tried, we only got a few sessions in before people went MIA), but I've briefly thought about how I would DM a game if I ever tried. It would likely be a short campaign with a comedic vibe, set up as more of a tutorial segment for the party before the go on to become future heroes. I never thought of how I would handle the monsters, but this "called shot" concept seems interesting. For my hypothetical game, I would water it down a bit and probably go with more of a Zelda boss style. So one member hits a weak spot, opening the monster up for more hits from the party. Outside of those hits, the monster may have relatively low AC, but barely take any damage from hits elsewhere on it's body. This could lead to the party scouting a monster before engaging, to find weak points, as well as the teamwork to get advantage for called shots (I probably won't add the disadvantage part). Maybe certain weapons or damage will be the weakness, and the party may need to flee to regroup with the new knowledge.

Rule 2 would work well with the new Exhaustion rules from One D&D.

Dude, I just found your content. Keep up the great work! Much love and appreciation from me, fairly new DM. I’ll definitely subscribe on you on Patreon. You are awesome!

Hey Coach - awesome stuff! In the deathblow rule, if they fail the deathblow by less than 5, they take the "deathblow damage" again at the end of their next turn... and again at the end of their next turn... and so on. Is that what you were saying? I LOVE IT. What sort of action would be required to "stop the bleeding"? Medicine roll -- difficulty equal to the difficulty of the death blow save? If the medics fail it by 5 -- duhn duhn -- the patient dieas. If they make it by 5, they stop the bleeding. If they make it by less than 5, they reduce the damage from the subsequent death blow damage per round by 1/2. They could also use some sort of magical healing that restores *at least* as much damage at the original deathblow damage. Thus, a couple of lower level clerics could *possibly* pump their dying commander with lots of small healing? But, the commander keeps bleeding, so they'd better move fast! Note that the mundane healing might have reduced the subsequent death blow damage per round by 1/2, giving them a bit more time... Okay - way too complicated, but --- hooo boy -- tensions galore!

@TheDungeonCoach

Жыл бұрын

Oooo cool rabbit hole you just went down! lol The damage only happens TWICE, once initailly and then again later, but thats it! This is just to separate out the damage some but still deal a TON of damage. I have a bleeding condition in DC20 RPG! And it takes a DC10 Medicine check to clear :)

I think some of these rules are better suited to a streamed game vs a more traditional one. ( You can insert a specific campaign instead of streamed as well. ) Not everything needs to be so high tension. Something that amps up a short term game with a flow more like streamed game, can just be exhausting in another game .

I'm really curious to see how you will implement magic in DC20 RPG. Because, personally I think that about 90% of 5e's problems come down to the magic system (I am in the minority though). Anyway, if you end up adding a system similar to Spheres of Power then it will probably be my replacement for 5e. Otherwise it will be hard to justify. I'm curious to see it when it's released :)

It's funny to see these videos on how to make the game more lethal... I get frequent TPKs, and am disappointed in boss fights if no one hits the ground... Of course "deadly" is my baseline difficulty, and I sprinkle minions on my bosses like Salt Bae 😜

@chrisg8989

Жыл бұрын

TPKs are easy when you hold all the cards as the DM. Don't act like it's impressive or something to brag about. It really isn't. The only important thing you are doing as DM is ensuring everyone is having a good time. That's the real challenge.

@guamae

Жыл бұрын

@@chrisg8989 all I'm really saying, is that you don't need to change the game rules to generate a challenge. Yeah, the CR system is crap, and the Adventuring Day mechanic is questionable... But it's still possible to challenge the PCs.

More dimension!

I need Spicy!

For called shots, when you give yourself disadvantage, is that the normal 5e mechanic where that just cancels out the advantage you had (so, making a normal to-hit roll), or does that mean giving "full" disadvantage (rolling twice and taking the lower result)?

@vnavone

Жыл бұрын

I had the same question - hope it gets answered!

@sticksandstones713

Жыл бұрын

The way it was played in the season was full disadvantage that could be canceled out by having advantage. Long story short for the scenario was that the players could either do an insane amount of damage to destroy the creature, or hit the two sensitive points (very high dc) to make it flee.

@davedyson7837

Жыл бұрын

@@sticksandstones713 Thanks!

The exhaustion one sounds good on paper but with healing being so low in 5e it just sounds like you will always have multiple level after every fight

The way we always handled called shots was just to set a more difficult to-hit number. Like if the target is AC 14, the called shot might be 17 or even 20, depending on how difficult it should be. But I like the dramatic tension of this better. It's never that easy, is it?

The only thing with rule 2 is healing sucks in 5e so topping up isn't ideal. You can never really out heal the damage so it's better to just kill them before they kill you.

Do you have a problem with epic death moment roleplayed and the character being really resurrected? Does it cheapen the great sendof you had previously?

I was trying to find your character creation homebrew video and I haven't been able to find it. Can you assist?

Yes, I love the sendoff but the other stuff is way too brutal in my opinion.

@Throckmorpheus

Жыл бұрын

It really works for the tone of the season, but yeah idk how well it'd work in a normal game. Plus (major spoilers obviously but) the campaign also has a very non-standard approach to what happens after death, which I'd assume is why the combat house rules are so brutal, since it's in Brennan's interest storytelling-wise to have player characters actually die.

will dc20 be available on Foundry VTT??

I don't love #2 as-written here for home games because healing in 5e was clearly designed to not keep up with damage. That said, I think using "if you take over half your max hp in a single hit make a save for system shock" and using exhaustion to display that mechanically, could potentially work. The snowballing effect off *current* health, however, feels way too punishing unless you also completely retune the numbers on healing spells.

Sounds fun and interesting, but I don't like how these rules (particularly rule #1) make your character creation more focused on CON, so that those saving throws are less punishing. I know that the idea is that the campaign is more hardcore, but this might make players take more rest or heal more frequently, just not to be punished by the rules.

@TheDungeonCoach

Жыл бұрын

This is true, but ONLY if you choose to min max. Many characters on the show have TERRIBLE Con :)

@ignacioalmonacid6153

Жыл бұрын

True, the thing is considering my luck with rolls, I'm probably dying more times than PC that I can create before hand xD.

@AbstractStew

Жыл бұрын

It's not as bad as you think. Con is already important, especially for casters (concentration checks). Making Constitution a dump stay is already the worst idea.

With a crit rule like that, barbarian will oneshot all bossess

Is having players make second backup characters considered “hardcore”?

The exhaustion rule is also stupid. I don't know about you, but I sure like derailing the pacing of the adventure by having to take multiple days off to recover from exhaustion from getting low. You would, at the very least, have to completely rework encounter design to accommodate this change, have encounters be rare or really easy.

1st house rule - 30 HP of damage does not mean the same thing to a 5th level fighter as it does to a 20th level fighter (because HP are a measure of combat skill). 30 HP is nothing to a 20th level fighter, but it will seriously hurt a 5th. Damage is not a gauge of how hard something is hit, it's the % of HP lost that should matter. The save should be for losing half your HP at once. (Same issue with Massive Damage) 2nd HR - I dislike this very much at low levels. This will make combat take so much longer. I'd much rather see it happen on rolling max damage. 3rd HR - no issues with this one. Seems like a good choice.

💜💜💜

I had a dnd session today i was a player with my older brother being the dm and i rolled very low at the start but as the soul of the die attuned to me i got higher ones and with a few nat 20’s and non nat 20’s i got attuned to a cloak that I can’t take off and kills downed people around me with death throws success being better, basically a thindergun, a really broken axe, and a ring that makes your punches stronger all things me t for each of the players but the wring will probably be sold because the player left so his character got killed with a sneak attack from a bug ear that was resurrected. It took 5 or so hours and it was a blast of fun with the funny nat 20’s and non nat 20’s and our reaction to the bugbear coming back to life but then our mini-tour character dealing max damage with a non-attuned axe that because of intimidation the damage was halted it was left at 1 hp so that was funny

#1) I don't feel like this makes combat more scary so much as more arbitrary. It also gives an outsized benefit to crit-fishing which doesn't fit the narrative. I've found (in a non-horror game) that simply using max+roll on crits makes for some very high numbers. #2) Makes sense in theory, but seems to come out with some strange results. If you have, say, 32hp, you can take a 16, 8, 4, 2 damage attack and end with 4 levels of exhaustion and 2hp left. Or if you take a 2, 4, 8, 16 you'll only have 1 level of exhaustion with 2hp. 15, 7, 4, 2. Feels kind of arbitrary again. #3) Is an elegant solution. Simply granting disadvantage would be too easy, because then anytime you already have disadvantage you can try a called shot, and there's nothing to lose. But having to go down not just one level but two levels (advantage > normal > disadvantage) really makes the payoff of a called shot worth it. My players haven't asked for called shots yet, but if they do I'm going to steal this rule. #4) Isn't really a house rule, and isn't specific to horror/high-threat games. But I think most players nowadays check the box "I don't mind character death as long as it's meaningful" on their session 0 form, so something like giving them a last word would be a great roleplay element.

Messing with hit points and critical hits doesn't make the game more interesting. It just makes combat more fiddly. If you want drama in combat, add dramatic action and motivations, not math.

Death blow is a terrible mechanic. It's entirely luck-based, you aren't rewarded for your intelligence, and because it is crit-specific it doesn't work with Spellcasters either. I for one like nothing more than making a fully fleshed out character and having them die to a random mook because of a 5% chance times the number of mooks and you just happened to fail a save or suck. What a joke. Don't do this at home, kids.

@AbstractStew

Жыл бұрын

Well, these rules have been added to a horror setting for campaign specific reasons. They help set tone and expectations for game play. They might not work in most campaigns,.but they do in Neverafter.

@Capt.Thunder

Жыл бұрын

@@AbstractStew I think they are bad in all situations, especially the exhaustion. You have to be very precise in how you utilise it. And there are better ways of achieving similar effects.

@bryan__m

7 ай бұрын

@@AbstractStew I haven't seen this particular horror game, but a month ago I played a horror game with professional horror podcasters, and we didn't need anything like the death blow mechanic to make combat scary. They did have a critical hit table, but you rolled a 1d100 to see what happened and the options varied wildly, usually more flavor than anything (like, you gain inspiration, or I think if you rolled a 100 your weapon forever deals extra damage against that type of creature). The scariest house rule we had was that if you take any damage while rolling death saves, you are instantly dead. In our first (of several) TPKs I was taken down by falling into an acid trap, then when it got to my turn the acid auto-dealt me damage and I was dead before I could even act.

With the death blow rule, all I hear is "Wouldn't it be fun if players could randomly die at any point?"