House Rules

Languages

Language barriers are not particularly fun or interesting for game play.  They lock players out of social interactions based on arbitrary decisions made at character creation.  Or, just as bad, they encourage convoluted backstories to try and justify why a farmer-turned-hero speaks abyssal, draconic and sylvan despite having never gone more than 50 miles from his home.  I want you to be able to interact with the world, but maintain a sense of cultural/regional diversity. So with this in mind I’ve made the following changes the the language system:

-Denizens of Espera speak a common language throughout the world.  You will always be able to understand NPCs and they will always be able to understand you.

-The languages listed in the PHB and other books are now considered dialects.

-Players have disadvantage on Insight, Deception, Intimidation and Persuasion checks on characters they do not share a common dialect with.

-Players have disadvantage on Intelligence checks that require reading materials written in a dialect they do not speak.

Resting and Downtime

Pacing is a key part of creating an engaging and immersive narrative.  This campaign places a great emphasis on exploration of and engagement with the world in which it takes place.  Espera is a world that has its share of danger, but is not actively hostile, so a degree of cation is also important.  In order to promote exploration and creative risk-management I have made the following changes to the rest system as it is laid out in the PHB:

-A short rest requires 8 hours without strenuous activity, at least 7 of which must be spent sleeping.

-A long rest requires 72 hours without strenuous activity, at least 21 of which must be spent sleeping.

-Characters who prepare spells may exchange their prepared spells with other spells of the same level(s) following the completion of a short or long rest, regardless of whether or not that character regained expended spell slots.

-Elves are only required to spend 3 hours meditating on a short rest and 10 on a long rest, but do not receive the benefit of completing their rest until the normal time elapses.

“Strenuous Activity” includes combat, taking damage in excess of your Constitution modifier, or failing a skill check with a penalty for failure (ex. Failing an athletics check to jump across a large gap, but not failing a knowledge check).  Given the slower pace of this campaign (there’s no vampire hunting you this time), these changes should bring about more narrative changes than mechanical ones. Also, this is an overall increase in the usefulness of martial classes who typically regain many resources on a short rest.  You will find that there has intentionally been left a significant amount of downtime for non-combat activity. In addition to using this time for talking to NPCs, taking on a profession or engaging in standard investigation would like to incorporate the Downtime activities outlined in Xanathar’s Guide to everything (pages 123-134).

Races

Before the calamity there were gods, and there were Sparks.  Sparks were created by the gods to serve as wardens of their creations throughout the multiverse and were indistinguishable from one another.  When the gods spirited away their creations to Espera to protect them from the void the Sparks began to change. They began to take on features of the gods who rescued them from the void until their forms shifted into the mortal races you are familiar with.  Some aesthetic changes have been made to better fit with the setting and are outlined below:

-Elf: Unchanged from PHB, however note the new rest rules.

-Kender: This diminutive race contains aspects of both Gnomes and Halflings and serves as a combination of the two from a societal perspective.  A Kender character can use either the Gnome or Halfling template as outlined in the PHB.

-Rhofaun: These tall, four eyed humanoids have an imposing presence.  They stand, on average, seven feet tall and weigh well over 250lbs. The forearms and lower legs of a Rhofaun are covered in short brown, black or white fur, with larger tufts at the wrists and elbows.  Aside from their faces the head of a Rhofaun is also covered in fur that is thicker at the top of their heads. Rhofaun commonly have thick skin that is a shade of brown. They may have yellow, green or red eyes.  They have deep voices and tend to speak slowly, a nod to their tendency toward a more measured pace of life. A Rhofaun PC uses the Dragonborn template from the PHB.

-Orc:Orc characters function as outlined in the PHB except they are full blooded Orcs.

The following races are not present in Espera.  Players are free to make a character with the stat template of one of these races as it exists in the PHB and aesthetically play as another race.

-Half-Elf: Union between human and elf produces either a human or an elf.

-Dragonborn: Dragons take on a unique role in Espera.  As a result, Dragonborn do not exist in this campaign setting.  They are functionally replaced by Rhofaun.

Health and Dying

The inherent risk of combat is part of what makes battle engaging and victory triumphant. To maintain the verisimilitude of Espera combat must feel integrated into the experience rather than 'game-y'. In other words, players should be able to behave in ways consistent with their character without ignoring optimal combat strategies. For example, a cleric choosing to leave unconscious allies down because they have more death saves to make or a fighter with a few HP staying in combat because he is just as effective the first time he is hit as he is before the last time fail to live up to the fantasy of being a protector of the weak or a master tactician respectively despite being perfectly reasonable strategies within the game rules as written. The rules as written take control away from the player at the most critical time, when he or she is on death's door. Therefore a second aim of these changes is to provide players a higher level of control over their characters when it matters most.

-PCs will have two sets of health pools, Hit Points (HP) and Life Points (LP).

-HP functions the same as it does now and is calculated the same way. Characters cannot go to negative HP. If a character would lose more HP than they have, they go to 0 HP instead.
--A character at 0 HP does not fall unconscious or make death saving throws.

-LP functions as a pool of 'emergency health' that is only depleted if a character takes damage while at 0 HP.
--Characters have LP equal to their hit die plus their constitution modifier, plus an additional amount equal to their constitution modifier plus the average of their hit die at levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20. (ex. a level 5 fighter with 12 constitution would have 10+1+6+1 LP)
--LP can only be restored by expending hit dice or taking a long rest.
--A character with 0 or fewer LP dies.

-A character with 0 HP becomes demoralized.
--A demoralized character has disadvantage on attack rolls and saves.
--A demoralized character has their movement speed halved.
--A character who becomes demoralized loses concentration. While demoralized, a character cannot maintain concentration.