I'm planning on running a high-difficulty dungeon crawl-centric game this summer, and have been brainstorming possible house rules to make the game more challenging.
One idea I've considered was lowering the amount of points players start with for Point Buy ability score generation. It would be a small adjustment, like reducing the starting points from 27 down to 23.
Would this be an effective way to make low-level play a little more challenging? Would it not make enough of a difference? Or would it make the characters too weak for adventuring, and should not be implemented?
Thank you for your thoughts.
Also, apologies if this is the wrong forum. I couldn't decide between here or Homebrew & House Rules.
There are ways to get power outside of stats such as feats, magic items and multiclassing. With access to those they should be fine.
I personally would just not give any racial stat bonuses and disallow the races that let you pick feats at level 1. That means no one is starting with anything higher than a 15 and not getting any super powerful combos like sharp shooter and crossbow expert until at least level 6.
If you do a smaller point buy instead they will have more stats which are low but most likely will still have high values in their main stats. Most likely wisdom will take that hit for non wisdom based casters. I'ts kind of in the middle and I could see people moving it to being a dump stat with a smaller point buy. That means more likely to miss traps ect...
There are ways to get power outside of stats such as feats, magic items and multiclassing. With access to those they should be fine.
I personally would just not give any racial stat bonuses and disallow the races that let you pick feats at level 1. That means no one is starting with anything higher than a 15 and not getting any super powerful combos like sharp shooter and crossbow expert until at least level 6.
If you do a smaller point buy instead they will have more stats which are low but most likely will still have high values in their main stats. Most likely wisdom will take that hit for non wisdom based casters. I'ts kind of in the middle and I could see people moving it to being a dump stat with a smaller point buy. That means more likely to miss traps ect...
I like the idea of removing racial bonuses. I think that better captures the feel of what I wanted to go for. However, this creates the problem of humans, whose only racial trait is ability score increases. Should I homebrew some sort of ASI-less human race?
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"And that day, a red rain fell from the sky here."
I like the idea of removing racial bonuses. I think that better captures the feel of what I wanted to go for. However, this creates the problem of humans, whose only racial trait is ability score increases. Should I homebrew some sort of ASI-less human race?
Just have everyone play variant human. The way they already do.
Instead of lowering stats, why not just increase all the DCs and make the encounters harder? Same effect and you don't have to convince the players.
You can , it makes the same effect with one difference. Having lower stats means that choosing between feats and stat increases remains a choice for longer because it takes longer to max key stats.
Basically higher DC's, Ac's ect makes the same characters relatively weaker while changing the stats changes the characters and builds. Its just what you prefer.
There are many options for making the game harder, and grittier. Reducing starting abilities is one way, as is running low, or no magic. Constraining class and racial choices, removing racial bonuses and removing starting feats all work to reduce the power level of the PCs.
Lowering the PCs power level will have a smoother, more linear effect on difficulty than jacking up DCs as needed to combat power creep with the added benefit of not providing the illusion of choice. When DMs have to resort to bumping up DCs to make things challenging, they effectively nullify choices made by players to have powerful characters. Start off with less powerful characters and those choices matter more.
I can appreciate that you are currently in the brainstorming phase of world-building, basically just looking for ideas and methods to implement. I would suggest that you have a chat with your intended playgroup to see if they would be interested in this version of fun, before you get too far and expend energy that might not get to see the light of day. If you have a pool of players that think that they might want to have a go at this, then run an opening one-shot. Give it a play test with some random pre-gens that you build. See if it works or not before you commit to this concept and potentially find out that no one enjoys it.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Characters will be clearly weaker and, more importantly, their progression is going to be slower - feats will not be a strong option for most of those characters career.
Do you already have the players for the game? They like this kind of "grit" take?
I would ask myself that before doing anything. And if you're going to look for players, remember to put that on the LFG clearly.
Hello everyone!
I'm planning on running a high-difficulty dungeon crawl-centric game this summer, and have been brainstorming possible house rules to make the game more challenging.
One idea I've considered was lowering the amount of points players start with for Point Buy ability score generation. It would be a small adjustment, like reducing the starting points from 27 down to 23.
Would this be an effective way to make low-level play a little more challenging? Would it not make enough of a difference? Or would it make the characters too weak for adventuring, and should not be implemented?
Thank you for your thoughts.
Also, apologies if this is the wrong forum. I couldn't decide between here or Homebrew & House Rules.
"And that day, a red rain fell from the sky here."
There are ways to get power outside of stats such as feats, magic items and multiclassing. With access to those they should be fine.
I personally would just not give any racial stat bonuses and disallow the races that let you pick feats at level 1. That means no one is starting with anything higher than a 15 and not getting any super powerful combos like sharp shooter and crossbow expert until at least level 6.
If you do a smaller point buy instead they will have more stats which are low but most likely will still have high values in their main stats. Most likely wisdom will take that hit for non wisdom based casters. I'ts kind of in the middle and I could see people moving it to being a dump stat with a smaller point buy. That means more likely to miss traps ect...
I like the idea of removing racial bonuses. I think that better captures the feel of what I wanted to go for. However, this creates the problem of humans, whose only racial trait is ability score increases. Should I homebrew some sort of ASI-less human race?
"And that day, a red rain fell from the sky here."
Just have everyone play variant human. The way they already do.
Instead of lowering stats, why not just increase all the DCs and make the encounters harder? Same effect and you don't have to convince the players.
You can , it makes the same effect with one difference. Having lower stats means that choosing between feats and stat increases remains a choice for longer because it takes longer to max key stats.
Basically higher DC's, Ac's ect makes the same characters relatively weaker while changing the stats changes the characters and builds. Its just what you prefer.
Ask yourself whether this would be fun for the players.
There are many options for making the game harder, and grittier. Reducing starting abilities is one way, as is running low, or no magic. Constraining class and racial choices, removing racial bonuses and removing starting feats all work to reduce the power level of the PCs.
Lowering the PCs power level will have a smoother, more linear effect on difficulty than jacking up DCs as needed to combat power creep with the added benefit of not providing the illusion of choice. When DMs have to resort to bumping up DCs to make things challenging, they effectively nullify choices made by players to have powerful characters. Start off with less powerful characters and those choices matter more.
I can appreciate that you are currently in the brainstorming phase of world-building, basically just looking for ideas and methods to implement. I would suggest that you have a chat with your intended playgroup to see if they would be interested in this version of fun, before you get too far and expend energy that might not get to see the light of day. If you have a pool of players that think that they might want to have a go at this, then run an opening one-shot. Give it a play test with some random pre-gens that you build. See if it works or not before you commit to this concept and potentially find out that no one enjoys it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Characters will be clearly weaker and, more importantly, their progression is going to be slower - feats will not be a strong option for most of those characters career.
Do you already have the players for the game? They like this kind of "grit" take?
I would ask myself that before doing anything. And if you're going to look for players, remember to put that on the LFG clearly.
The simplest way to reduce the power of characters is to not allow feats, not allow multiclassing, make access to magic items very limited.