There are a number of DMG rules variants being used and some house rules.
Gritty Realism
The campaign will use the Gritty Realism variant from the DMG. However, there are some tweaks in order to improve playability, to add flavor, and to support the campaign concept.
- Essentially the "adventuring day" becomes the "adventuring week."
- A Long Rest requires 1 week of rest in a safe place. Most areas in the wilderness will not be safe enough but there are exceptions where the Weave is permanently calm and there are no vicious creatures, bad weather, or other environmental conditions that would prevent rest.
- During this week, you are allowed 40 hours of activity and the rest of the time resting in a safe place - but you cannot use features (such as spells) that have resources you are resting to gain back.
- You do not gain back the resources until the end of the long rest.
- A Short Rest now takes 8 hours and it is assumed that you are resting for at least 6 of those 8 hours. Some races need less sleep, but they still need that time to relax and recharge.
- You can Recuperate between rests. You can take a break, eat a snack, and tend to your wounds in order to use Hit Dice for healing between rests. For each Hit Die spent, you must spend 10 minutes resting.
- Prepared spells still must be changed during a long rest but to add more flexibility, one prepared spell can be changed during a short rest.
- Casters can cast a 5th level spell or lower that normally requires a spell slot that they can normally cast using the pure force of will, gaining a level of exhaustion in the process if you have less than 5 levels of exhaustion and are not immune to exhaustion.
- Once per day effects generally become once per long rest.
- The Catnap spell duration becomes 1 hour instead of 10 minutes.
- The duration of most spells that last for more than 1 hour, are not concentration, and are not rituals is increased to account for the longer "adventuring day." See Spell Duration Changes.
- During a short rest, you can spend 1 HD to gain back a single spell slot of 5th level or lower or a class feature. This HD cannot be used for healing.
- During a short rest, you can make a DC 10 CON Save in order to reduce your Exhaustion by 1 level if you have sufficient food and water for the day.
- You gain back all of your Hit Dice, Hit Points, and other resources during a long rest.
- You can only level-up during a long rest.
- If you gain new spells, abilities, feats, or class features while leveling up, you will need to have access to training during your long rest.
- You do not gain the benefits of the new level until the end of the long rest.
Magic
The Weave has become chaotic and magic more dangerous. This has several effects:
- Magic level is capped at 6, though mages still gain new spells slots and can upcast spells.
- You must be at least of Expert rank in one of the Pattern Guilds in order to use magic or magic-like/superhuman effects in public.
- The Weave has become much more chaotic since the "opening" of the world. This has created a sort of "weather" - changing vibrations and twisting in the Weave - that affects spell casting. There are generally three states (in game-terms):
- Calm - this was the default state a decade ago. Now truly calm areas are rare. When the Weave is calm, magic casting is safe.
- Normal - the most common state of the Weave has calmed somewhat since the events of 1317. In this state, if you roll a 1 on a d20 when casting a spell (if the spell has no roll to hit or activate, roll a d20), then roll another d20. If you get a second 1 then you may suffer spell burnout. Note that in the normal state the following types of magic are exempt: cantrips, rituals, and magic items.
- Chaotic - when the "weather" is bad and the Weave is truly chaotic, using magic is dangerous indeed. For the most part, these events are like massive hail storms, floods, and massive forest fires - potentially destructive but relatively rare events. However, there are areas of the world that seem to be in this state permanently. In this state, all magic use is potentially dangerous - even magic items. Whenever you use a cantrip, spell or magic item, roll you "burnout die." This starts as a d12 but each time you suffer a burnout effect, it becomes one size smaller (d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4). On a 1 or 2, the power is overwhelming and you trigger a burnout event. Note that the die will reset once you take a long rest or escape from the chaotic region or it passes.
- Magic items are rare and regulated. However, in some large cities a black market has developed, especially in areas where gifted are more common.
Magic Burnout
If you suffer the effects of magic burnout, either because you rolled two 1's in normal conditions or rolled a 1 or 2 on your burnout die in chaotic conditions, roll a d100, and checkout the Burnout Consequences Table (a button will be added to Roll20 to simplify this).
If the consequence doesn't make sense, you can re-roll or one will be picked. If you are casting a cantrip and a surge occurs, the spell fails and the table isn't used. Otherwise a surge doesn't mean the spell or effect failed - it just means you couldn't control the power and it had consequences. If a magic item sets off the effect, its level is determined by its rarity.
Note that you have been trained to deal with the chaos, magic item creation has improved, reducing the effect of the chaos. In the early years, the effects were much worse and for some, they still are.
| d100 |
Consequence |
| 01-05 |
Drained: Lose (spell level) hit dice. |
| 06-15 |
Reduced: Lose (spell level/2) hit dice, round up. |
| 16-40 |
Shocked: Lose (spell level x 4) hit points. |
| 41-88 |
Hurt: Lose (spell level x 2) hit points. |
| 89-93 |
Blackout: You have disadvantage when casting spells for (spell level) rounds. |
| 94 |
Immolated: Shrink the burnout die to d4. If in a normal area, this has no effect. |
| 95 |
Gifted: Power flows through you and you regain the spell slot or charge used. |
| 96 |
Renewed: Power flows through you and you regain (spell level) hit dice. |
| 97 |
Healed: Power flows through you, gain (spell level x 4) hit points. |
| 98 |
Protected: The power flows around you, granting (spell level x 4) temporary hit points. |
| 99 |
Energized: You have advantage when casting spells for (spell level) rounds. |
| 100 |
Restored: Reset the burnout die to d12. If in a normal area, use the same effect as 99. |
Magic Item Identification
The DMG magic item variant "More Difficult Identification" will be used in some cases. While Identify will work as per-RAW most of the time in this world, items found in Lumev are different and the spell isn't nearly as effective. However, those skilled in Arcana and the Identify spell can attempt to identify these more difficult items during downtime.
Variant Human
When creating a human, we use the variant human rules.
Teleportation
Sight-based teleportation still works and is very useful. However, non-sight based teleportation is usually unreliable due to the chaos of the Weave. Due to this non-sight-based teleportation spells have roughly a 50% chance of working, sending you off course on failure.
Resurrection
Resurrection was dicey and difficult before and has become even more so. Only those with a strong connection to the Weave can be resurrected or brought back from the dead. Each time you have been resurrected the chance of something going terribly wrong increases. To survive a resurrection requires a CON check, which becomes increasingly more difficult.
| Number of previous resurrections |
CON Save DC |
| 0 |
10 |
| 1 |
15 |
| 2 |
20 |
| 3 |
Auto-fail |
On failure, you come back as an undead - powerful and crazed (at this point it's time to make a new character).
Learning Skills
If you look at the
Features tab of the character sheet, you will see an area where you can write a Skill and below that an area to mark training. You can learn new skills and specialized skills by seeking out trainers, books, and other sources of learning during downtime. During a long rest, if you are able to find training towards a new skill, mark off one training bubble. Once you have done this four times (over 4 long rests), you gain the new skill. Note that training does not have to be consecutive and can be interspersed with adventuring and other activities.
Experience Points
You gain experience points from more things than combat. Experience gains are abstracted - rather than adding up the experience listed for each creature killed, the experience is instead given out for completing encounters (which might not be combat-oriented), completing goals, finding treasure, and discovering new locations or details important to your goals. See
Experience Points and Progression for more information.
Fate
What separates successful adventurers from the dead? Some say luck, others say fate. Either way, this is represented in the game by Fate points. You start at level 1 with a single Fate point and each time you level up you gain another one, up to three. You can use a Fate point to roll an ability, save or attack with Advantage or to re-roll. If you are damaged and would be reduced to 0 HP or killed, you can instead use a Fate point to miraculously avoid that Fate and stay standing with 1 HP.
