Headless, I share some of your concerns as well.

It's why I play stuff like OD&D, S&W:WB and Mazes & Minotaurs.

When PCs have less spells, they don't spam cast.

When PCs have lower HP, they don't act blase about combat.

In S&W:WB that 8th level fighter has 8D6+8 HP and maybe another 8 from CON bonus. On average, that's 44 HP, but to get there, this Fighter has been to hell and back many times over years. They have earned the right to dare piss on a half dozen city guard. However, its still not a great dare because when word gets out you slaughtered the town guard, the nobles send bigger predators at you.

The "respect" doesn't need to be for those 6 crossbowmen, but the 600 others in town plus the 6 mutant ninjas the lord has on retainer for when overpowered asshats invade his town and kill his employees. Also, in my OD&D, crossbows get +2 vs. armor and do 1D6+1 damage (1 round to load), so I am gonna drop probably 9-12 points on that fighter each round from 6 shooters...who might be on rooftops or spread out so the fighter can't chop them like wood in one round.

...and my city guard carry horns. Guess what happens when the horn sounds?

In my campaigns, I have sometimes decided I wanted to use exploding damage. It's all fun and games until the PCs start dropping (which is why I make it players vote). I've added the houserule that the explosion dice can't be more than the original dice. AKA, 2D6 can explode to 4D6, not 10D6. I added that rule after a 7D6 dragon breath (I roll dragon breath) exploded into 72 points of damage and TPK'd the entire campaign.

As for unlimited magic, it works great for me in high fantasy like D&D 4e and Exalted, but in Sword & Sorcery, I prefer magic to be somewhat more special.

Overall though, when I am in the mood for the game you are describing, I pull out Stormbringer 3e. It does exactly what you are describing.

Until PCs have demon armor and demon weapons (it will happen), they damn well respect "normal" troops and magic always remains scary and unpredictable. Oh, you have 6 bound elementals? That's nice until they get loose and remind yo how much they hated being enslaved.

Quote from: tenbones;955802... As Opaopajr. says - there are several systems that could help you without reinventing things.

My top recommendations would be:

Fantasycraft and True20

I'm sure others will have suggestions. I use these two because they're *really* toolkitty and allow you make big system changes easily.

Thanks for the suggestions.  If I go with another system I have serveral criteria.  First free.  Or real cheep.  My gaming budget is being spent on primary source documents (history, and there was a book on the trade, hunt and legend sounding gensing of all things which looked like real good souce materia for an economy around magical plants.  I resisted, I don't have time to read the books I have)  and my next purtuchs needs to be Lords Of Olympus.

Second either D&D based or ubiquitous.  I can find good players but they don't come from a games back ground.  I need to train them.  I've taught them 5th ed.  If we go with something different I'll need at least 3 copies on paper.

MUST BE PAPER! I have a no screens rule at my table.  (Strict and abatrary sure but its my table and I have my reasons)

Third, simple.  Well Simple ish.  I love the crunch and my players can handle it but I want the game to be about role playing not adding and subtracting combat modifiers.  I would like to have a moral system and followers and large scale combat but I don't want that to get bogged down.  One or two roles to decide what happens (maybe the dice say "nothing really happens this round")

There are probably some other reqirments that fit in that vein.  

Thats Why I am thinking a home brew painted over 5th ed. Other suggestions still welcomed.

These are pretty severe changes, but I personally like them.  If you want grittier D&D, what you have here will go a long way towards achieving it.  Your players might no like it so I would bring the changes up to them and explain *why* you want such changes.  

A word of warning, such drastic houserules can have drastic and unforeseen consequences...  but don't let that stop you.  Just realize that things may crop up.  I also think the other suggestions here are good.  OD&D will solve a lot of your combat woes, but less of your magic troubles.  "Crypts and Things" by Newt is a sword and sorcery variant of OD&D that would do both.  Also, DCC is may be exactly what you are looking for.  DCC has much deadlier combat, and much scarier magic (to the user), and still very much D&D.

Non-linearity.  Thats What I am looking for.  Hit point based combat is linear.  I knock hitpoints off then enemy a hand full or a double handfull at a time.  They do the same to me.  

I want something Like the duel by the Moon Door in Game of Thrones.  Or duel in 13th warrior.  And keep scaling up.  Have you read Young Miles?  He starts off buying an obsolete jump ship headed for the scrap heap and ends up Admiral of a fleet of mercenary pirates.  He was probably level 2 at the start and level 3 at the end of that adventure.  (If levels applied in stories and they don't)

Quote from: Skarg;955751Other things I'd want to "fix" that I've read about in 5e are the "can't die in one attack regardless of damage" feature, the revival during combat, the easy access to revival, and the generic "has advantage" mechanic (i.e. I'd want a wide range of degrees of advantage).

Even by the base rules in the PHB any creature dies in a single hit if, after dropping to zero hit points, the attack has remaining damage equal to or in excess of the creature's maximum hit points (there is an even grittier optional rule around this in the DMG where any creature taking more than half max HP in damage from one attack has to roll a CON check against a system shock table that at its worst can drop a creature to zero hit points immediately.

Revival during combat is one of my nitpicks about the system. The Lingering Injuries option in the DMG can lead to PCs really fearing dropping to 0 HP (if that's the trigger you choose for the table) but I don't feel like lingering injuries are very "D&D," even in gritty D&D. Instead I use this house rule: anyone who drops to 0 HP also gains a level of Exhaustion. This will ultimately kill a character outright if they are too cavalier about dropping and reviving, but also creates a "death spiral" where characters lose efficiency as they get knocked out of combat and brought back into the fray. (I also use Exhaustion a lot to simulate the wear and tear of various environmental hazards, so it meshes well as a sort of "negative resource" the players have to manage. "If you camp here, without shelter in the rain, you'll risk gaining a level of Exhaustion upon breaking camp." "Oh shit, we already have two levels of Exhaustion and these woods are crawling with ogres, let's press on and see if we can find a cave or something!")


Easy access to revival is what it is, I'm loathe to outright strip abilities from characters and 5e definitely treats 0 hp as more of a "wounded, out of the fray, but possibly rallying" than "mortal wound". My 0 hp = exhaustion rule at least means that no PC can depend on infinite revivals, especially if they're already exhausted to any real degree.

The generic "has advantage/disadvantage" mechanic is to my liking and I'd even use it in older editions of D&D in lieu of tracking modifiers. (And there's still discrete modifiers in 5e, they are just exceedingly rare, and I'd probably ignore them and just use ad/disad because it's there, it's quick, and it works well enough for anyone I've played 5e with- which admittedly is usually total newbies or casual players, not number-crunching hobbyists).

Quote from: Headless;955826Thanks for the suggestions.  If I go with another system I have serveral criteria.  First free.  Or real cheep.  My gaming budget is being spent on primary source documents (history, and there was a book on the trade, hunt and legend sounding gensing of all things which looked like real good souce materia for an economy around magical plants.  I resisted, I don't have time to read the books I have)  and my next purtuchs needs to be Lords Of Olympus.

Second either D&D based or ubiquitous.  I can find good players but they don't come from a games back ground.  I need to train them.  I've taught them 5th ed.  If we go with something different I'll need at least 3 copies on paper.

MUST BE PAPER! I have a no screens rule at my table.  (Strict and abatrary sure but its my table and I have my reasons)

Third, simple.  Well Simple ish.  I love the crunch and my players can handle it but I want the game to be about role playing not adding and subtracting combat modifiers.  I would like to have a moral system and followers and large scale combat but I don't want that to get bogged down.  One or two roles to decide what happens (maybe the dice say "nothing really happens this round")

There are probably some other reqirments that fit in that vein.  

Thats Why I am thinking a home brew painted over 5th ed. Other suggestions still welcomed.

SIR, YES SIR!!!

Okay... that's a high bar. But I think my recommendations still stand. Another thought - and this is completely out of left field... Mutants and Masterminds 3e and homebrew it for fantasy.

I've said it many times here before, it's the ultimate D&D Heartbreaker - Fantasycraft can give you what you want but it will take only slightly less work than it would take for you to homebrew 5e. But I'm confident it can give you exactly what you want. True20 is a *lot* more simple and super-flexible. They're both D&D3e derivatives that arrived at far different conclusions and I think they're the only 3.x games I'd ever run willingly. Both are pretty cheap on Amazon. Fantasycraft is a PHB/DMG/MM all in one massive book that gives a shit-ton of options that essentially lets you build your own brand of D&D from the ground up. I still maintain it's one of the most amazing pieces of rpg-design I've ever seen. Some will say it's the work of over-obsessed supernerds that loved 3.x  (Sorry Pat and Alex - I still respect the hell out of both of you) - but its amazing even in its madness.

True20 is amazing. I could see EITHER of these as being what D&D4e should have been and if so - I think the Nerdzerker Edition Wars may never have happened. Or maybe I'm just an optimist?

Here is OpenQuest. It's free, but I'd buy the cheap POD instead of burning printer ink.
http://d101games.com/books/openquest/

Here is a review of OpenQuest by a D&D fan/OSR junkie.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-openquest.html

BTW, is there a free version of True20?

Pretty certain that D&D 5e spoiled the Wild Magic Sorceror's "Wild Magic" table preceding the release of the PHB. Along with the sorceror class from the SRD, Basic 5e, and a printer, you should be perfectly fine -- and completely free.

I believe that should actually cover every single requirement you asked for. Free, on paper, not many pages, easy resolution (under 3 rolls), no modifier overload, players already know 5e, etc.

Let me know if you need more help.

How dangerous / interesting / unpredictable is Wild Magic in 5e?

Also how comic vs. how strange?

Quote from: Spinachcat;955870How dangerous / interesting / unpredictable is Wild Magic in 5e?

Also how comic vs. how strange?

I find it cartoony.  I the one time I used the feature I ingnored the table all together.  Come on a guy turns blue? That goes one of three ways. Either a zany non-feature or the guy gets lynched in the first town he enters or the player hyjacks the game becuase every encounter becomes about earning grudging acceptance from the town folks.  Drowism for blue halflings, ucick!

Quote from: Headless;955918I find it cartoony.  I the one time I used the feature I ingnored the table all together.  Come on a guy turns blue? That goes one of three ways. Either a zany non-feature or the guy gets lynched in the first town he enters or the player hyjacks the game becuase every encounter becomes about earning grudging acceptance from the town folks.  Drowism for blue halflings, ucick!

And yet it is far easier to edit individual goofy entries like that than reinventing the wheel. :cool:

Given 5e is from an age just after where level drain is unspeakable anathema, I was surprised how swingy and full of combat/campaign impact so many of the results were. (edit: yes, it was some weak sauce stirred within, but given from whence we came...)

Templates are fantastic GM resources and should be stolen shamelessly to be readapted. If it were me, I'd categorize what sort of volatile nature I'd want extant in my magic, form a desired probability, and then rip straight from 5e's and/or DCC's tables corresponding effects for my own Magic FUBAR table. Probably also resize my table from d100 into something smaller, too.

Why don't you do a basic Random Encounters Table (d8+d12)? Then you can fill in the lower rarity values with catastrophic effects, the higher rarity values with miraculous ones, and the commons with whatever lateral banality or fancy strikes you. Only 19 values to fill, which is easy to cherry pick your favorites from the already made ideas above (and elsewhere).

Here, for my next post I'll go scribble up my own according to a 5-minute brainstorm exercise scratch campaign.

"The Dance of Life & Death" Sorcerer. Tapping into magic shifts the flow of vitality and pain in life's struggle to survive. Normally the flow spills out and confuses the hunt, so that the success of fight or flight is in flux. However sometimes the balance tips in favor of hunter or prey, and thus HP is redistributed for one side or the other.

Wild Magic Table
() = 5e Wild Magic Table value. * = Variation from original content. italics = changed content.

Rare bad
2. (41-42) You turn into a potted plant until the start of you next turn. While a plant, you are incapacitated and have vulnerability to all damage. If you drop to 0 HP, your pot breaks, and your form reverts.
3. (07-08) You cast fireball as a 3rd-lvl spell centered on yourself.
4. (83-84)* Each ally w/in 30' of you takes 1d10 necrotic damage. Nearest enemy regains HP equal to sum of this damage.
5. (71-72)* A random ally w/in 120' of you gains vulnerability to all damage for the next minute.

Uncommon bad
6. (15-16)* For the next minute, your nearest enemy regain 5 HP at the start of each of your turns.
7. (33-34)* Minimize the damage of the next damaging spell you cast w/in the next minute.
8. (39-40)* Random enemy w/in 60' of you regain 2d6 HP.

Common
09. (85-86) You cast mirror image.
10. (87-88) You cast fly on a random creature w/in 60' of you.
11. (19-20) You cast grease centered on yourself.
12. (93-94) Your size increases by one size category for the next minute.
13. (63-64) You cast fog cloud centered on yourself.

Uncommon good
14. (15-16) For the next minute, you regain 5 HP at the start of each of your turns.
15. (39-40) You regain 2d10 HP.
16. (33-34) Maximize the damage of the next damaging spell you cast w/in the next minute.

Rare good
17. (83-84)* Each enemy w/in 30' of you takes 1d10 necrotic damage. You regain HP equal to sum of this damage.
18. (71-72) You gain resistance to all damage for the next minute.
19. (65-66)* Up to three enemy creatures you choose w/in 30' of you take 4d10 lightning damage.
20. (91-92) If you die w/in next minute, you immediately come back to life as if by reincarnate spell

There, setting decided first, then extant content cherry-picked, judged, organized, adapted, and restructured. Now articulate what you have envisioned, gleam relevant already made stuff, and the rest falls into place.

http://fasagames.com/earthdawn-whatis/earthdawn/

Your exploding damage dice rules drift things really close to Earthdawn (full disclosure, I am a dev for some of the 4E Companion material). Death is always a risk (my favorite Archer Adept moment was when I one shotted the griffin that was about to eat our horses with a Fire Arrow that got multiple explosions), but as all PC type characters use magic there are ways to manage the risk. Also, the in game metaphysics say that the spirit of Death is trapped under a lava-field, giving about an hour for curative magic to work, even on corpses. Mages get even more "unlimited" casting, but can only cast a few spell chosen at the start if the day "safely", as unsafe "raw casting" tends to attract the Horrors (the setting's Lovecraftian gribblies). Damage reduction for armor and "strain damage" to activate certain abilities is also baked into the system. It runs on a familiar set of 6 stats of 3-18 scale, & has all the classic archetypes. I personally think ED does the Thief and Illusionist archetypes better than most attempts at them. I'll see if I can find my link to the 4E Quickstart for you in a little while.

Quote from: Headless;955731Thoughts?

As a house rule to an existing version of D&D, spontaneous wizard combustion simply for casting standard spells would be an absolute deal breaker for me.  It calls into question a GM's understanding of basic probability, commitment to an ongoing campaign, and interest in resolving actions impartially rather than for his own entertainment.

If you do want dangerous magic that's respectable, but it would be far better to build the magic system and classes with that in mind from the ground up.  Ideally wizards would have things they can do* without risking their heads exploding, and when they did chance it the gain or the power would be worth the risk.  DCC is a good example of this, and I think it would be up your alley if price weren't an issue.  But if you're just doing a one pass hack of D&D it'd be more honest and respectful of your players to say "hey, no spellcasters this game, I'm going for a Conan thing" than to say "oh yeah, wizards are fine *snicker* (I'll just nuke them later)".

*And "things to do" doesn't even have to be spells/cantrips, though it might be.  It could be lore and knowledge skills, second rank fighter, or partial thief abilities.  But all those require more than one pass with house rules.

On increasing uncertainty in combat, I have this idea that 5e's whole short rest/long rest economy opens up the old idea of players rolling their exact hit points for each combat, maybe only after they take damage.  I haven't nailed down exactly how that should interact with damage and rests though.

As weird as it sounds, maybe check out how Health and Stamina worked for d20 Star Wars. Basically, your health is equal to your Constitution score. Your Stamina replaces normal hit points. The way it works is that on a critical hit, you take damage directly to your health instead of your Stamina (Hit Points). I'm not saying to use this, but that it's a worthwhile mechanic to look into for inspiration.

Changing rest times I think is covered in the 5e DMG. Short Rests become an 8 hour sleep and Long Rests are something like a week(?). If this was applied to Spellcasters, then a night's sleep is not going to give them their spells back. That in itself would encourage players to use them more sparingly. I'd recommend letting them keep their Cantrips.

Exploding dice in D&D... I'm not sure but I certainly look forward to a polished version. Not including sneak attack... Well... I mean people do die from a single wound sometimes but my 1995 self who was stabbed three times does appreciate this.

I'm also not sure about Damage Reduction in 5e. However your idea does have merit. I have used hardness in 1e so I am sure it could be adapted. Actually, I kind of like the idea of softer materials having a hard time affecting harder materials. Something like a regular steel dagger having no effect on someone in Mithril or Adamantite armor isn't too far fetched.

I've thought about using Fatigue in lieu of spell slots for an OSR idea. One idea has a Fatigue system based on saving throws or DCs for all sorts of actions, where spellcasting is included. Spells of higher levels obviously having higher DCs and the amount by which you fail is relevant. In essence, it is possible for a spell to take everything out of you and you pass out.

Your spell failure/misfire thing is neat and reminds me a bit of Wild Magic Surges from the 2e Tome of Magic. The "everything going off at once" thing could be downright scary.

Other things of note. Maybe check out the e6 rules for 3.5e. In a way, e6 is kind of embedded into 5e and kind of not. It is at least for combat. You could stick with Hit Points with this kind of system as the most anyone would have is 6dX, with maybe 1-3 HP per level after level 6? Spellcasters are limited to level 3 spells though I think your idea is that higher level spells exist but there is supposed to be an increasing risk.

Out of any of the editions, 2.5e (The Black Books) had some nice information, particularly in Spells and Magic. Maybe consider adding risk based on the school of magic used? Divination might not be as dangerous as an Evocation or Necromantic spell. Necromancy might have it's own risks. I don't know, your ideas are in a pretty raw statebut there's nothing wrong with brainstorming.