Toying with the idea of implementing the sanity, fear, and madness rules into a grim dark Ravenloft campaign I’m crafting. Looking for pros and cons on it.
How does the sanity score work? From what I gather it’s a flat number that has no bonus attached even for saving throws.
How much does it increase when you level up? I know it says it goes down by 1 each time you get long term madness but it also mentions going up. Is it incremental by 1 each level or is it exponential based on level.
How well do these mechanics work in games made for them? What are the best ways to use them?
I am currently using Sanity as an extra modifier in my Curse of Strahd campaign. The way I implement it is I tell them at certain moments that they need to make a Sanity Save (if perhaps they have seen something horrifying). If they fail the save, depending on the severity of the situation, I will roll on one of the Madness tables in the DMG.
I also will substitute Sanity in place of what would normally be a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw for certain spells and effects if it seems more applicable. I provided a general list to my players of common spells and things that I thought I would change the save for.
Finally, because no one is granted proficiency in Sanity saving throws inherently, I crafted a homebrew feat called Serenity (https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/86043-serenity) which allows the player an opportunity to become more proficient in Sanity saves if they so please.
Toying with the idea of implementing the sanity, fear, and madness rules into a grim dark Ravenloft campaign I’m crafting. Looking for pros and cons on it.
How does the sanity score work? From what I gather it’s a flat number that has no bonus attached even for saving throws.
How much does it increase when you level up? I know it says it goes down by 1 each time you get long term madness but it also mentions going up. Is it incremental by 1 each level or is it exponential based on level.
How well do these mechanics work in games made for them? What are the best ways to use them?
I am currently using Sanity as an extra modifier in my Curse of Strahd campaign. The way I implement it is I tell them at certain moments that they need to make a Sanity Save (if perhaps they have seen something horrifying). If they fail the save, depending on the severity of the situation, I will roll on one of the Madness tables in the DMG.
I also will substitute Sanity in place of what would normally be a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw for certain spells and effects if it seems more applicable. I provided a general list to my players of common spells and things that I thought I would change the save for.
Finally, because no one is granted proficiency in Sanity saving throws inherently, I crafted a homebrew feat called Serenity (https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/86043-serenity) which allows the player an opportunity to become more proficient in Sanity saves if they so please.
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