Variant Rules

## New Rules System

These rules are heavily based on older editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and are designed to incentivize particular behaviors and make the world feel more dangerous, the setting more realistic, and your triumphs more heroic.

If any of these rules seem rather harsh, keep in mind that **the same rules that apply to your character also apply to your enemies**. The rules are not designed to punish you; they are designed to make combat a more difficult decision.

## General Rules

These are short, general rules that do not require much explanation as to how they work.

### Gritty Realism

A short rest is eight hours, and a long rest is seven days.

### Hit Point Vitality

When a creature is above half of its hit points, it is in a normal state of activity and composure called **high vitality**. When it is below half of its hit points, the creature becomes noticeably injured and hampered by its wounds, entering a state of **low vitality**. This state causes a creature to take a point of exhaustion. Further, if a creature's hit points are equal to or lower than its number of hit die (or level, for player characters), it enters a state of **critical vitality**. In this state, it takes an additional level of exhaustion.

### Healer's Kit Dependency

To recover health using your hit die, you must expend one use of a healer's kit.

### Death and Related Spells

There are several changes to the spells that affect the state of death. These changes mean that being restored to life after death is more rare, more difficult and less viable than simply avoiding the circumstances that lead to death altogether. For the material cost of each spell, when such a spell is cast on consecrated ground, an artifact or holy relic may be used in place of consumable material components. The artifact or holy relic is not consumed in this process.

* ***Revivify***. Time limit extended to 5 minutes. The humanoid cannot have been in a mortal state at their death.
* ***Raise Dead***. Removes the mortal state from a willing living humanoid. If the humanoid would die within the next 10 days, it is instead stabilized. The spell effect ceases once this takes place.
* ***Reincarnate***. A creature that originates from an Outer Plane may take on an additional stat block and token, with one and the other remaining on separate plane. The spell ends either when the Inner Plane token is destroyed or the Outer Plane token is destroyed. In the latter case, the Inner Plane token is destroyed with it.
* ***Resurrection***. You implore God to restore the life of a righteous humanoid who has died in the past seven days. Roll a Piety check and present a case for the humanoid's resurrection. If the result is greater than 30, the humanoid is raised to life, as if they were restored by *revivify*.
* ***True Resurrection***. This spell functions the same as *resurrection*, except that the Piety check is made at advantage, any creature can be resurrected, and the creature can have died in a mortal state.
* ***Wish***. Subject to the typical rules of a *wish* beyond the scope of the spell's description.

To compensate for these changes, creatures who are rolling death saving throws can use Inspiration to roll advantage, and only one successful attack can cause a failed save on a dying creature per round, and this counts for the creature's death saving throw that round. Other attacks can inflict lingering injuries, but do not incur additional failed saves.

### Attunement and Discovery

Magic items are storied and mythical objects, whose use is tied to their histories. To properly Identify an item, one needs to spend a long rest researching the item. The spell Identify will tell of its name and where it comes from, but will not grant more than that; researching the item during a long rest is required to learn of its origins and history.

To attune to an item properly, one must have both Identified the item and pass an ability check to learn more about the item. More details can be found under the *Downtime: Research* section in *Xanathar's Guide to Everything*.

### System Shock

If a creature drops from high vitality to critical vitality in one round, or it takes damage while it is in critical vitality, the creature must roll on the table below.

 2-4
 5-7
 8-10
 10-12

### Lingering Injuries

When a creature suffers a critical hit or is dropped to 0 hit points, it must roll on the lingering injuries table.

 2
 3
 4
 5-7
 8-10
 11-13
 14-18
 19-20

### Additional Actions

These represent just a small starting point for additional standard actions that can be taken on your turn.

#### Climb onto a Bigger Creature

If one creature wants to jump onto another creature, it can do so by grappling. A Small or Medium creature has little chance of making a successful grapple against a Huge or Gargantuan creature, however, unless magic has granted the grappler supernatural might. As an alternative, a suitably large opponent can be treated as terrain for the purpose of jumping onto its back or clinging to a limb. After making any ability checks necessary to get into position and onto the larger creature, the smaller creature uses its action to make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the target's Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If it wins the contest, the smaller creature successfully moves into the target creature's space and clings to its body. While in the target's space, the smaller creature moves with the target and has advantage on attack rolls against it. The smaller creature can move around within the larger creature's space, treating the space as difficult terrain. The larger creature's ability to attack the smaller creature depends on the smaller creature's location, and is left to your discretion. The larger creature can dislodge the smaller creature as an action – knocking it off, scraping it against a wall, or grabbing and throwing it – by making a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the smaller creature's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. The smaller creature chooses which ability to use.

#### Disarm

A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target's grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item. The attacker has disadvantage on its attack roll if the target is holding the item with two or more hands. The target has advantage on its ability check if it is larger than the attacking creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller.

#### Overrun

When a creature tries to move through a hostile creature's space, the mover can try to force its way through by overrunning the hostile creature. As an action or a bonus action, the mover makes a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the hostile creature's Strength (Athletics) check. The creature attempting the overrun has advantage on this check if it is larger than the hostile creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller. If the mover wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature's space once this turn.

#### Shove Aside

With this option, a creature uses the special shove attack from the Player's Handbook to force a target to the side, rather than away. The attacker has disadvantage on its Strength (Athletics) check when it does so. If that check is successful, the attacker moves the target 5 feet to a different space within its reach.

#### Tumble

A creature can try to tumble through a hostile creature's space, ducking and weaving past the opponent. As an action or a bonus action, the tumbler makes a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the hostile creature's Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the tumbler wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature's space once this turn.

## Class changes

### Barbarian

***Subclass: Berserker***. The Frenzy feature does not incur exhaustion unless the barbarian already has at least one level of exhaustion.

### Fighter

Fighters may choose one Battle Master maneuver, and can use it without superiority dice. They must choose the maneuver after completing a long rest, and cannot change it until completing their next long rest.

### Monk

***Subclass: Four Elements***. The scaling of abilities increases with level, not with the expended *ki*.

### Ranger

Rangers operate from the *Revised Ranger* UA, not the baseline PHB.

***Subclass: Beast Master***. The animal companion scales with ranger level.

### Sorcerer

Sorcerers use *spell points* instead of *spell slots*.

## Experience

Experience is a mechanic that often does not represent things in the real world; in the Old World, experience actually reflects a combination of elements that work in tandem to build one's legacy and make them more formidable. This is something that most people do not experience in their lifetimes, only the most daring and perhaps fortunate will gain experience in combat and in transcendental skills.

Unlike in typical settings, experience is something that comes by in smaller amounts. First, **we will be using a milestone system**. This is by no means an attempt to tune up difficulty arbitrarily; you also receive additional features, immunities, skills, and powers associated with your religion, your race, your affiliations, and your class.

*As an example, all racial bonuses have been buffed so they equal the same score on the Musicus Meter, with at most five (5) points to combat-related features and at least four (4) points to non-combat related features. Every race is rated as a 9 on the Musicus Meter, which is 50% greater than the average in standard 5e. However, these mostly reflect increases in versatility outside of combat.*

To compound this further, **you will select your archetype at 1st level**, and choose one of the two archetype features at that time. **To level up, you must take a long rest**, which means going into town. This reflects revelations, training, and meditation that earns you your additional level.

## Spell Creation

In 5e, you can create magic items, magic weapons, holy sites - but can't make your own spells. Now, you are able to modify existing spells easily to fit your needs better. While the spells in all of the supplementary books are extensive, they are not comprehensive. What separates an okay spell from a great spell is application, not design.

This is the procedure to modify or create a spell.

1. **Choose an existing spell you want to modify.** This is a requirement. Though you are creating a unique spell, you must have a baseline that is being modified, otherwise we would need to extensively playtest your creation (which is admittedly time-consuming).
2. **Adjust the type of damage, additional effects, the area of effect, or special conditions.** This isn't strictly to damaging spells, but it is necessary to know how different your spell is going to be. As a general rule, changing the type of damage, area of effect, or additional effects will run the risk of increasing the spell level depending on what the final product looks like. Any tweaked weaknesses or limitations will almost certainly drive up the spell level quickly.
3. **Submit the spell concept, the baseline spell, your modifications, and a description of how it works**. I will be able to look over your creation and will briefly playtest it to figure out how balanced it is in practice. I will then give you my initial thoughts and ruling for its spell level. Please give me at least two days to review the spell.
4. **Accept or appeal my decision**. I am not a game creator, and I may have misinterpreted your intention or overestimated its usefulness. You can appeal this decision at any time after my initial ruling. If we cannot agree on an appropriate spell level, it will remain out of the game until we find a compromise.
5. **Add the tentative spell to your prepared spells**. Once we agree on a spell level, I'll make a note of it and you can add it to your prepared spells whenever comes a time you can choose spells (e.g. preparing spells, adding new spells on level-up, etc.) From that point, I'll keep a note on how appropriate the spell's level is. If it turns out to be unbalanced, we may have to raise its spell level to keep it from becoming the dominant brute-force method of solving problems. If you find it to unwieldy or not worthy of the spell point trade-off and it goes unused for long bouts of time, I will likely lower its level to encourage its use.

Note that because this is an experimental process, it is not set in stone, and everything here is subject to change with only slight notice to maintain balance. Inform me of any issues you are having and we can work together to resolve it.