Them Bones of Adventure - XIV: Weather

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

I’ve been holding off on a big one for some time now: Weather.

I wanted something that allowed for more than just a shrugging off of weather as a game element, for I find a lot of the difficulties inherent to surviving the great outdoors derive not so much from making miles of progress, but from doing it while facing down a gale that hardly even allows one to draw breath. Finding shelter because the party decided it was time to do so is nothing but a chore, having to do it under a torrential downpour before exhaustion piles up and precious hit-points start being washed away is an adventure. I’m here to sign up for that last one.

It’s easy to conclude that this could get icky and complicated pretty quickly if going for an exhaustive approach. Luckily, my scope of interest is bounded by what I’ll need at a table in the heat of the running. I can bear to make do with some a lot of arbitrariness here.

Note that the intention is neither the lazy thinking approach of “I can just dictate whatever weather I need” or “I’m sure there’s an app for that” nor is this the overly self-indulgent “translating a complex weather algorithm into dice-roll notation, complete with subtables for phases of the moon”.

No, this is just plain young me, doing it like Sinatra.

The Safest of Topics

Talking about the weather? Well, not in an RPG context.

Afterthought to some, wooly mammoth of an issue to others, weather generation in a procedural manner is probably well beyond my ability to create and I’ll admit straight at the launchpad: I’m deliberately biting off way more than I can chew here. If there is a practical and convincing take on weather systems out there I’ve yet to see its presentation or meet its author.

Christmas is nigh and I feel like I don't ask for much: I wish for a procedure that is elegant, that preserves the running’s momentum, something that can be done at-a-glance and dispenses with consulting any but the most rudimentary of tables, something eminently usable and that doesn’t feel like it’s been frontloaded to serve the party’s narrative, for detriment or benefit.

Gameable Weather

I’ve consulted with the gogs and magogs of Wikipages, I’ve learned a bit about Köppen climate areas and generally become better informed for it, but I’m not about to define traits for inches of rainfall or miles of windspeed, no, I’m after the gameable fatty portions, not the marrowy numeric hairsplits.

Even for a system that embraces modelling an order bordering on chaos, I’ll still need at least a couple of stable points of comparison, needles with which to spin the thread. For this I choose to turn to the directions of the compass and an array of temperature descriptions, then narrowed by climate type, to base the die-roll’s results upon.

I’ve seen online the whole “Weather as Reaction Roll” and I wish to move past that a bit while shooting to keep the parts that enable the same kind of simplification.

The weather roll, despite some interpretative differences, is then to be distant kin to a reaction roll for the very basis of how the weather is shaped (improves and worsens). Its reading is to be somewhat subjective, its result dispersion to rely on uncle Gauss’s help, its results mainly descriptive. These are still just bare bones, waiting on testing and refinement before table use is forthcoming.

Left to the Seasons’ Random Display

When to make a weather roll?

Being as I’m no climatologist, let me stress once again: I’m not out looking for the correct but rather the game-relevant answer.

Drawing from my rich double-paned-glass-filtered experience with weather, I’m thinking weather rolls might be appropriate (and easier to remember) at liminar junctions during a given day: one daily roll seems plenty good for the parameter of temperature, with partial rolls at every four-hour watch after that being usable for precipitation and the shifting of the wind’s direction, this for a generic temperate climate. When we get to the more tropical latitudes, more frequent rolls for precipitation might be desirable, the opposite applying for the more stable climate types, such as deserts.

Of course it need not be as intensive as this, a single roll can be extrapolated to last for several days and ad-hoc rolls can also be made simply for partial consultation, such as determining just the shift of the wind’s direction or speed, iterating as long as the matter remains important. If the fastidious approach doesn’t turn out so good, I’ll have to think of something else, such as keying weather roll triggers on Wilderness encounter tables. Realism is just a yardstick, one that I’d rather bend than break.

The Crunchy Bits

For the simpler reading, go with just the leftmost columns, growing complexity can then be added by extending the reading to the right, culminating in the use of the ancillary worksheet that tracks the evolution of weather over an extended period of time and which is intended to be used either by the party for record-taking or, more importantly, by me as referee, to plot out a week’s worth of weather in advance.

Larger version

Anatomy of a Weather Roll

I endeavoured to atomize the constituent elements of weather that I’ve found to be gameable, trying to answer the question of how deep can one mine a simple 2d6 roll for meaning before out pops the Balrog of overcomplexity?

To maximize the possibilities, I started by differentiating the two six-siders used (colours being good for this) and then decided on the categories to decode from rolling the bastards. Note that all of the following have some sort of effect or implication on travel, shelter, survival, vision and combat. Hence me dubbing them gameable elements:

Turn of the Weather: The Reaction Roll’iest part of the roll, as simplicity is better served by a degree of randomization inherent to the roll instead of trying to accurately model temperature drifts like an almanac. In effect, this will mainly determine if the weather is getting warmer or colder, with the effect evenly spread out over the duration until the next roll. 

Though the temptation presents itself, I cannot shirk numeric signifiers – they feel very modern and thus inadequate in the context of fantasy – despite my view that I should avoid conventions common to our contemporary upbringing, such as that of measuring temperature in clearly defined scales, still the implication remains that the referee must get the meaning across, and records of the weather must be kept, in order for the whole system to mean anything. The graded approach is a concession, as I don’t see the verbal descriptions catching on or being sufficient in transmitting the idea of temperature to the players.

Temperature Die: One of the differentiated d6s is used to mark the temperature. This is the most objective part of the roll, keying into the ancillary table that relates the temperature’s descriptive term.

Precipitation Die: The other differentiated d6 is reserved for precipitation, with six different degrees. It only means anything when it rains, with rainfall being dictated by the 2d6 roll.

Prevailing Wind Direction: Determine North as facing the roller. Trace an imaginary line from highest to lowest die result.

Wind Speed: Measured from categories 0 to 5, subtracting the temperature die’s result from the precipitation’s. This works out to a nicely embedded secondary stratified probability curve.

Duration: After a fair while spent experimenting, I settled for slicing time into daily for temperature and once every four-hour watch for rain and for wind. Should one of the durations expire during gameplay, simply recheck the lapsed result if it is at all important, or default into calm air/lack of rain if not.

Larger version

Closing Thoughts – Crucial Extrapolations

Never a slave to the die roll, the understanding is that the weather is only rolled to unearth some bare bones, the interpretation of that which is seasonable, along with some other deductions must all rest on the referee’s shoulders. For example: it is ever obvious that the temperature must drop by 10 to 15 Celsius at night, no matter what.

Careful reading will also yield results for Fog, Sleet, Hail, Cyclonic winds and Snow, as these are all a matter of crossreferencing temperature with precipitation level and windspeed. The present geography too must play a role, as each local climate will imply a different set of expectations regarding Precipitation and Average Temperature. Elevation, presence of an active volcano, mountain chains and shelter in the woodland or deep valleys. There are things no simple table can do for the referee. You just have to know how to play it by ear.

Them Bones of Adventure - XIII: Matters of Sinew (Swimming, Jumping, Digging)

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

S’funny, everytime I think that I’m scraping the very bottom of the barrel I find myself fashioning a new post wholecloth out of things I thought I could do without or simply had not remembered until recently.

As I was thinking about some of the more tendon-torsion inducing feats I realized that I hate the way the current version of the game pretty much conflates Acrobatics with Athletics, enforcing a feeling of redundance between the Dexterity and Strength attributes, usually to the detriment of the later. 

This post is aimed at fixing some of that by detailing a handful of feats that only those in possession of the gift of athleticism can hope to pull off. Note that I’m not out to expand every damn skill into its own little world, at least not intentionally.

Anyhow, here we go once again, mallet-meets-heart style.

The Crunchy Bits

Adult Swim

Borrowing from myself for once, I’m going to abstractly interpret swimming as a mechanical cousin to my original proposal for climbing, which I might soon revise anyway;

In light of deeper reading from interesting new horizons, I feel like it is a more adequate fit: climbs are more dynamic environments (just picture the mish-mash of difficulties potentially encountered in your average rockface compared to the much more uniform behaviour from a body of water) and the stakes for failing during a climb are higher, thus being deserving of greater player input and agency.

As with climbing, if the waters are still, help is at hand and nothing is truly at stake as the character’s just getting his feet wet, do away with rolls and make do with halving the character’s movement.

If faced with a hazardous or overlong (or overdeep) stretch of water or attempting something risky, such as wading into the murk while carrying weight:

- Extended roll of [Strength (Athletics), DC 2+], success propels the character an horizontal number of feet equal to the result.

- For downward diving movement halve the result and double it for upward motion. While diving, the player is well advised to keep in mind his character's capacity for holding his breath. 

- The DC is set at two because failures are fairly meaningless in a calm water context outside of Fumbling, the poor progress yielded by a low roll already representing the character’s need to slow down to catch breath. However, choppier waters can and will carry the risk of the character being momentarily overwhelmed by the current, meaning an altered course and higher DCs, with failure dragging the character in the vector of the current’s wake.

- Fumbles mean the character has messed his stroke-breathing pattern and a CON save to prevent Exhaustion must be passed to reestablish a rythm lest he end up drowning in a flailing mass. Being encumbered aggravates the fumble range.

- Lack of training in Athletics indicates the character is not a competent swimmer and will be at a Disadvantage in any but the calmest of waters.

Note that, depending on the current encountered, this activity can count as a demanding or strenuous task.

Power-jumping the Shark

I can say without the least bit of irony that I like the Jumping rules in the PHB. They’re simple, logical, dependable, roll-free and account for differing character traits. Almost a full package.

This is just a small addenda for the concept of power-jumps that the book mentions but doesn’t cover.

- If a character trained in Athletics devotes his action to a jump with the requisite momentum and succeeds on a roll of [Strength (Athletics), DC 10], the jump will carry him an additional number of feet equal to a roll of his Proficiency Die for Long Jumps and half of that, rounded down, for High Jumps.

Digging (for honour and glory)

Finally, we come to the roman army’s weapon of choice. For a game about treasure hunting, DnD features remarkably little digging, whereas LotFP took the time and care to think of the topic. It’s a lovely little gem of a mechanic, so I’ll just coopt it without further ado.

- An adequately equipped character can dig a number of cubic feet equal to one plus his strength modifier in an hour (half of that if lacking proper tools). Negative modifiers imply additional hours to dig a single cubic foot.

Them Bones of Adventure - XII: Social Skills

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.





Introduction

Social skills and roleplaying games, to the layman an antagonistic relationship.

As last post was growing beardy I made the cutoff, also on account of having found Mythlands of Erce’s Anders Honoré detailing his own efforts at tackling this very same situation and wishing to spatter my digestive juices all over it; as it turns out, unlike Yahweh in the Old Testament, I did not find the effort lacking, rather aiding my cogitations between last post and this one.

Once again, let us get out of the way the fact that fiddling with NPC psychology is one of the warm and moist spaces in a game’s running, which is to say: a terrific breeding ground for GM fiat and its fungal spores of arbitrariness. They cannot be erradicated, but they can be reasoned with: as the guidelines are made clear and the exceptions are well weighted and pondered upon, telling your players that you’re going to test an opposing group of foes’ morale or reaction and then doing it in the open is a surefire policy of transparency that will keep on yielding dividends. And so will the leading of interactions on the grounds of logic instead of whimsy.

Fantastic Social Skills and Where to Find Them

Social rolls are definitely a case of ‘less is more’. I’ll curb the need to roll for most anything bar the initial reaction roll, and let the interactions flow for themselves.

Running NPCs is all about mood and motivations: The Reaction Roll provides the interaction’s initial background mood, much like the random encounter distance provides a tactical backdrop for developing a combat that follows. Past that, it is the motivations, filtered through the mood, that make the interaction sing, for from them flows everything that logic can buy, including the farm if PCs or NPCs alike blunder into the wrong words, die rolls nonwithstanding.

What is more, I must keep in mind that things for which there are structured rules tend to be channeled onto play through that self-same architecture; I don’t want to formalize or restrain social interaction into a straitjacket of game lingo, for I must keep present that PCs and NPCs are divided by a chasming rules assymmetry, one which should be minimized whenever encountered.

Just to illustrate my point, combat – by necessity of its stakes a quintessentially balanced structure – has rules that equally affect players and non-players completely alike whereas social interaction, by dint of freewill extending to ones but not to others, requires a soft hand on the tiller and emphatically not an exchange of d20 volleys between participants.

After all, if a player perceives that the game allows diplomacy attempts to win the day as he tries to reason Death Itself under the table, he’s bound to always try, yes?

The Crunchy Bits

I’m making two proposals on this one, the first one’s more convoluted and d20-oriented, the second, more agile one, is in the closing thoughts.

All of the options detailed below need a solid tangible cause for the attempt to be launched from, which is to say, no rolls can come about without causes and consequences, with the bare minimum of consequence being that the tangible cause forwarded by the player has been resisted, rejected or shot down by way of counteroffer. Discretion is not just advised, but mandatory.

The unforgiving rule of First Impressions – Reaction Cues

The following table is rolled but once at the outset of an interaction and is modified by the speaker/pointsman’s halved Charisma modifier, rounded down, occasionally applying a circumstantial modifier (1-4 points), for perceptible displays of might or meekness from the party, the Charmed condition (+2), as well as any clear markers of enmity (race being a tragically apt instance) or the opposite thereof.

Reaction Table		Persuasion & Animal Handling DCs
2d6	NPC Reaction	Refrain from harm	Minor Favour	Major Favour
2-	Agressively Hostile	25	-	-
3-5	Guardedly Hostile	20	25	-
6-8	Uncertain, Indifferent	15	20	25
9-11	Peaceable, Approachable	-	15	20
12+	Friendly, Pliable	-	-	15

I tried to condense the DMG's nebulous rule proposals for social interaction which almost hint at the use of reaction rolls, but stop just shy of the fact. Even if nothing else, the classic reaction roll can be hitched up nicely with these systems. I admit that the DC numbers above were repeated more for ease of recall, but they can be massaged at discretion’s need. Since 5E’s modifiers are too swingy for the delicate 2d6 structure, this allows me to roll the 2d6 closer to unadultered while the player still gets to push some use out of his character’s bonuses.

The game’s rules are meant to follow the grain of immersion:

Barbarism & Instinct

- The reaction roll as well as its modifiers are public for simple minded creatures or NPCs that are dumb, foreign to deception or simply brutally honest and that wear their hearts on their sleeve.

- Morale checks are made in plain sight and so are the modifiers if any.

Civilization & Cunning

- Deceitful (or civilized) stock will have their reaction rolls made in secret. The characters can’t know what they’re up to and so neither can the players. This can mean they'll be rolling against an unknown DC when attempting persuasion.

- If a character has the Insight skill trained to a higher degree than the other party’s Deception skill, that player alone will be privy to the roll’s result.

Otherness

It is possible that no amount of mundane Insight will hint you to the tells of a creature that transcends the boundaries of your metaphysical nature. Unless, of course, it wants you to know.

Deception

Remember, the reason dice are rolled is to plumb a concrete result from uncertainty. This means rolling only happens in the no-man's land of a social interaction: solid, undisputable facts (in the recipient’s own mindview) and blatant falsehoods are categorically not rolled for.

I’ll only ask for rolls for things that might conceivably be true. The little mundane lies that are the truck of scoundrels and player characters (if you’ll pardon the redundance) everywhere.

This means I’m leaving at the door all the gonzo shit: no telling a guard his pants are on fire or that the characters are envoys of the one true god. Unless they have the trappings to back the claim and a discreet battery of illusion spells at the ready, in which case, let us roll and find out.

- Roll of [Charisma (Deception)] opposed by the target’s [Wisdom (Insight)]

- Ties will be broken by the initial reaction roll. If it too is neutral, the highest natural d20 rolled tiebreaks.

- An NPC lying to a player will be secretly tested against the target character’s Passive Insight.

Persuasion (and Animal Handling)

This is a counterpart to Deception, replacing earnestness for falsehood. Animals can be persuaded if communication can be established by some mean, but a measure of instinctive diplomacy through Animal Handling works as well. This should only ever be rolled for uncertain yet ponderous requests (as outlined in the Reaction Roll’s table) or abstracted occurrences such as Etiquette, Gift Bearing, Securing Audiences through underlings and such. It is in no way a substitute for face-to-face interaction.

- Roll of [Charisma (Persuasion), Variable DC] or [Charisma (Animal Handling), Variable DC]

- The Charmed condition grants Advantage on Persuasion/Handling attempts made upon the recipient;

- Disadvantage will come about from language barriers for NPCs or lack of the Animal Handling skill for beasts. Remember that the character doing the speaking is the one who applies modifiers to both the Reaction and the Persuasion.

I’ll endeavour to always draw out as much of an interaction as possible without stumbling back into rolls. Piling requests, successful or otherwise, will tax the other party leading to a shift in the reaction type, fumbles being especially pernicious.

Intimidation

Intimidation – particularly in combat – has always been a thorn on my side since my earliest days in the game. It’s swingy when it hits. Way too swingy, in fact. And also prone to massed attempts, whenever the payoff compensates the action taken.

- Intimidation in combat cannot be attempted on demand, it can only be sprouted as a byproduct of a Critical Hit, a grisly trophy carrying meaning to the target, a momentous circumstance in the ebb and flow of battle or a timely spell or special ability. Displays of fierce strength, breathtaking dexterity and momentous constitution permit the use of a Physical stat for the roll instead of bravado and a threatening mien.

- Roll [Charisma/physical stat (Intimidation), DC of 10 or target’s Charisma or Wisdom attribute total, as appropriate]

- A successful attempt causes NPCs to test morale. Each group of similar creatures rolls a single check, made against the most abundant score or a leader’s score, if one is present; If two morale checks are passed in a combat by an NPC, he is assumed to be inured to intimidation attempts and to fight to the last breath.

I’ve also been very much taken with Anders H.’s take on when to test for morale, meaning I’ll test when a group loses a member or half the side is vanquished and for each quarter-slice of starting hitpoints for a solo creature, plus when a leader is taken down. Retainers in the party’s employ roll individually.

Closing Thoughts – Going Minimalist (and letting the mouth do all the talking)

I can’t yet tell if I’ll conform to the above table and rules, as they may yet prove top-heavy and unwieldy in practice. I’m also not a fan of Persuasion and Deception’s essential mechanic assymetry between PC and NPC. I can make perfectly good headway by just telling a lie and seeing if the player picks up on it or not. Of course, this might leave certain skills out to dry and that might prove unpalatable to some.

With the above in mind, here’s a short-circuit version that relies on just modifying the Reaction Roll’s first two columns and handling the rest of the interaction in bulk, verbally & logically, from that point on:

- Roll for Reaction at the interaction’s outset as usual. If a PC has proficiency in a social skill relevant to the unfolding action, upon its convincing display of use he rolls an additional proficiency die and places it alongside with the reaction roll.

- Uses of Persuasion/Animal Handling/Deception: Add a roll of the appropriate proficiency die to the 2d6 reaction and drop the highest or lowest roll as befits the situation.

- Uses of Intimidation/Performance (for Rallying Cries): target checks 2d6 morale, plus the proficiency die, dropping the highest or lowest roll as appropriate.

- All the reaction dice are capped at a maximum result of “6”, i.e., a d10 added from proficiency that comes up a 7, 8, 9 or 10 is counted as a 6 instead.

- A player can always opt to roll a d4 instead of the character's current proficiency die, when applicable.

Them Bones of Adventure - XI: Solid Fear and Liquid Courage

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

I don’t buy the rationale of the fearless adventurer.

A surefire way to depersonalize a character and effect the reverse alchemy of flesh to cardboard is not giving a man anything to fear. This is sometimes handled through roleplay and at others through some shade of background, but it’s never really supposed to be a hurdle, just a dash of colour within the edges.

Fear is the Mind Killer

The inclusion of the following considerations can fundamentally alter the tone of a game so I’ll have to give that some serious mind-chewing.

The aim’s to add some psychology at a low overhead cost. Adventurers are presumed to lead interesting lives and be adequately world-weary, not needing to test their courage at the sight of any old harlot’s dentata, but they’re also expected to be nibbling and pushing at the borders of The Known, meaning encounters with the wondrous, the incredible, the fantastic, the deadly and the weird, often all rolled up into one. This will also mean some degree of DM adjudication and intrusion, as a mechanic structure cannot  hope to remain simple and at the same time cover all the nuanced instances of when a character should or shouldn’t have to prove his mettle. It’s not a clean or entirely neutral structure, is where I’m ultimately getting at.

As a golden rule, mundane fear should be modelled without infringing on a player’s freewill, rather allowing the character action albeit at reduced efficiency. This means changing the Frightened condition, which if it is to feature more often should have an accordingly mitigated impact.

The Crunchy Bits

What is tested?

In the books Wisdom is described as governing Fear, whereas Charisma counts for Willpower.

I get that one may fear what one doesn’t understand, but courage is not really about understanding danger, rather one can be foolhardy or blatantly courageous in the face of situations when how much in danger one is eludes one’s perception utterly, sometimes for the better.

Anyway, even in game balance terms, Wisdom is already well endowed, so I’m moving Courage to Charisma, as it is both an expression of willpower and also one of the most charismatic traits you can hope to find on a person.

When to test?

This is a tricky one. This mechanic should be used sparingly, tests being called only infrequently and for situations that truly fall outside the hard-boiled normality of an adventurer’s life, as a way to starkly underline the exception that the character is being faced with. It also follows that the more experienced a character becomes, the less is left of the world to leave him dumbstruck.

I’m making a swing for Challenge Rating as a semi-objective numeric signifier, but outnumbering and quite a dizzying number of other circumstances – control of the environment, fallen comrades, foe’s observed performance in a fight, the character’s own past performance and trauma or how unnatural the opposition is – can all conspire to precipitate or immunize a character from testing.

- When asked to test his mettle, a character must pass a [Charisma Save, DC (10 or creature’s CR, whichever is higher)] for being presented with a significant threat to life and limb from a creature with CR higher than the character’s level or from a group of lower CR foes that outnumbers the party’s highest level by at least 2:1 (a typical level one party is considered outnumbered by sixteen or more 1/8 CR creatures, etc).

- Disadvantage on the above check happens if the creature is of Large or even bigger size, or, if a group, it outnumbers the party by more than 3:1.

- Advantage wil come from special abilities, since natural motives for granting Advantage will likely mean the character simply doesn’t need to roll altogether.

- On a failure, the character becomes afflicted with the Frightened condition.

Gone with a whimper: Frightened condition

- A Frightened creature has Disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight.

- Movement by the creature that brings it closer to the source of its fear counts as being made over difficult terrain.

- This condition is ended once a [Charisma Save, DC (10 or the source of fear’s CR, whichever is higher)] is passed.

- Multiple sources of fear are all resolved by a single saving throw, made against the highest present DC.

The first part remains equal, the second and onward is where the subtle shift happens. I get that the PHB’s condition is meant to emulate magical sources of fear whereas I’m more interested in the mundane effect.

Retainer and NPC Morale

Of wider reach than just determining if a character is affected by a debilitating condition, NPCs are to have a morale stat, which will determine surrender, avoidance and fleeing, unlike the above test.

Exclusive for redshirt retainers and other NPCs lacking player agency, I’m simply coopting the classic Warhammer leadership system of 2d6 morale, put to excellent use by Alexis Smolensk in his campaign, where it gave some additional feeling of retainers having their own decision centres, as they rolled not just for life-or-death decisions but rather when faced with any sort of activity that implied danger and defied their comfort zone, including something so simple as deciding if the retainer descended underground in the first place and if they forged ahead through hardship or folded back to civilization when presented with the chance.

- When faced with danger and threatening uncertainty, an NPC rolls 2d6 and compares the result to its Morale score; if the result exceeds it, the NPC takes measures to avert or remove himself from the source of distress.

In a nutshell: the test is of the roll-equal-or-under kind and having a high stat is a good thing. As a quick and dirty way to figure out a typical Morale score, assign a base value of 5 or 6 and modify this with either the Wisdom or Charisma modifier found in the MM stat-block, whichever feels more appropriate to the creature in question.

Akin to a Reaction Roll, the Bell-curve distribution serves the purpose better than a spiky d20 since running away or holding the line ought to be a more predictable event than swinging to attack. I’ll deal with Intimidation et al in a short while.

Running on Fumes: Temporary Hitpoints

- Temporary hitpoints are crossed out after expenditure of regular ones.

This means that even if a character chances into additional, higher, sources of tHp, the benefit to be reaped will still only come to the fore after the body has given out.

Blunting the Edge: Intoxicated condition

Wizards’ family-friendly version of DnD has no room for upshots to intoxication, even if there is historical precedent: to them it’s down to the literal proverb-proven case of picking your poison when fetching the bottle. Even as a social drinker who sometimes gets very social, I don’t endorse drinking but the game option is to me a mandatory inclusion.

What follows is for alcohol, different intoxicants can definitely have different effects (wait until the barbarian gets a-hold of the wode ‘shrooms).

- After consuming a significant portion* of intoxicant from liquor or some other substance, a character must pass a [Constitution save, DC 10+] (+1 per additional portion) or gain a level of Intoxication.

As he gains levels of Intoxication from alcohol, a character: 

- First gets Disadvantage on Dexterity then, cumulatively, on Wisdom and finally on Intelligence rolls.

- His fumble range increases across the board by one for each level of the condition.

- If the level of Intoxication goes past a character’s CON modifier, he will also now count as Poisoned.

- Intoxication’s benefits begin at “1”, then progress to “d4”, “d6”, etc; For every level of Intoxication, a character adds the benefit to any d20 rolls to test the character’s courage and as a number of temporary hitpoints per level, rolled accordingly.

*(content varying from drink to drink, and certainly not something I feel a need to preestablish).

Closing Thoughts – Breaking the Rules

The inclusion of morale as a game stat, of course, opens the door to the creation of a Leader of Men or Warlord type character, likewise from intoxication for some sort of Drunken Master or “Fuelled by Fire Water” character archetypes. I’m not going there just yet but the clouds loom invitingly on the horizon. After all, much like anti-matter, the laying down of a rule carries with it the seeds of design space for its own exception.