Comments/suggestions on Jester's rules (5e)

[alhoon]

I felt the same way, but necromancy, which is the major part of power checks in my table should be done by %. For actual crimes, I used way higher percentages. And the more corrupt one got, the less I had them roll.

In any case, I'm all for nostalgia. I'm a conservative. I'm used to PC being %.

[Jester of the FoS]

I felt the same way, but necromancy, which is the major part of power checks in my table should be done by %. For actual crimes, I used way higher percentages. And the more corrupt one got, the less I had them roll.

Disadvantage and advantage can help with that.
Having DCs be 1, 3, or 5 for most actions and modifying with adv/dis gives you a nice range of probability. A DC of 3 is 15% but with advantage it's 1% and disadvantage it's 9%.

In any case, I'm all for nostalgia. I'm a conservative. I'm used to PC being %.

In which case you can use the old system just fine.

I'll probably also eschew the big chart. Referencing is not just slow it really locks down what is and is not a "sin". Which gets screwy.

For example, violating a tenant of a neutral faith is a 1% power check.
Judaism is arguably a neutral religion having both good and evil followers. And it has a well known tenant against eating non-kosher food. Eating an unclean animal is therefore a powers check.
I eat pork products once a week. So every year I have a 50/50 chance of failing a powers check. After a decade... all hail Jester the darklord of bacon!

[alhoon]

I eat pork products once a week. So every year I have a 50/50 chance of failing a powers check. After a decade... all hail Jester the darklord of bacon!

Weeeeeeell... as far as Gothic horror goes, there are evil acts whether you realize they are or evil or not. Bypassing your religion to eat something not allowed whether it's pork, or alcohol etc is one of them I think. No, it wouldn't make you darklord. But it would risk a couple of PCs.

As I said, the more corrupt my PCs get, the less I have them roll. Which is also not quite in-theme. After all, it starts with a person eating pork and ends with a person drinking blood of innocents. That's the theme as far as I know.
I also disagree with the theme, but I take religious tenets seriously IMC.

Really, a paladin that hits the bottle after an adventure when his faith demands that lay-persons to be abstinent, is asking for a power's check.
One of my characters in the recent campaign (outlander in Falkovnia) has made very clear that his character is against adultery; he hasn't cheated on his wife back in the prime material even though it was semi-accepted. I had drow captives with supermodel bodies throw themselves at him and his char wasn't even tempted.
If he succumbs to adultery in Ravenloft, he WILL get a power's check, and not just a 2% even though his faith says nothing about it.

[alhoon]

Jester: I added the backwards man. Please check for approval.

[Jester of the FoS]

Jester: I added the backwards man. Please check for approval.

To the monster book? I'll give it a once over when I get my DMG.
Honestly, until I have a couple more months of 5e reading I'll probably be wary of using monsters.

I eat pork products once a week. So every year I have a 50/50 chance of failing a powers check. After a decade... all hail Jester the darklord of bacon!

Weeeeeeell... as far as Gothic horror goes, there are evil acts whether you realize they are or evil or not. Bypassing your religion to eat something not allowed whether it's pork, or alcohol etc is one of them I think. No, it wouldn't make you darklord. But it would risk a couple of PCs.

As I said, the more corrupt my PCs get, the less I have them roll. Which is also not quite in-theme. After all, it starts with a person eating pork and ends with a person drinking blood of innocents. That's the theme as far as I know.

There's no way to set hard rules for when a check should be rolled. As can be seen by the continual "does this warrant a check?" questions and threads.
The best advice is: roll when it fits your campaign. If you want your players struggling against darkness, roll more; if you want temptation to be a lesser them of your campaign, roll less.

The best power check system will be one that is less hard rules for when to roll and more advice and support afterward.

Really, a paladin that hits the bottle after an adventure when his faith demands that lay-persons to be abstinent, is asking for a power's check.
One of my characters in the recent campaign (outlander in Falkovnia) has made very clear that his character is against adultery; he hasn't cheated on his wife back in the prime material even though it was semi-accepted. I had drow captives with supermodel bodies throw themselves at him and his char wasn't even tempted.
If he succumbs to adultery in Ravenloft, he WILL get a power's check, and not just a 2% even though his faith says nothing about it.

Which really emphasizes that set DCs just don't work as well. The DM knows if something should be a DC 1 or DC 5 or even a DC 10.

[alhoon]

Speaking of power checks, I think I would use a "build-up" kind of thing. You do stuff and you may attract the attention of the DPowers after a while.

About this DC 1 or DC 5... or even the PChecks with 2%. As it was discussed about the skills: If there's nearly no chance of failure, what's the point to rolling it?

So, I would say that PChecks build up till you have to roll with a DC 5+. It's a little more book-keeping but I prefer having a note of "Germe: PCh 3, Jiorm: PCh 1" on my notepad file than rolling for the 5% or 10% chance that something will happen.

Small things like low necromancy or lies just increase the build-up while major things like murder or soul-theft (magic jar etc) force a roll if the threshold is high.

More details:
- The power check is a d20 roll, with DC 5 (or more). You add your lost power checks to the roll. I.e if you have already lost 3 power checks, you roll 1d20+3.
- Passing the check reduces the build-up by 3
- Failing the check reduces the build-up to 0... and counts as a failed PCheck with all the curses and penalties that go with it.
- The build-up is unknown to the PCs.
- Petty things don't force a roll and increase the build-up only if they're done repeatedly. I.e. eating something your religion has a tenet against, won't increase the buildup, except if you do it constantly, or you do it during a holiday or something. Lying to your friends about your romantic relation with the victim's wife won't increase the build up the first time, but if you continuously lie to avoid making yourself suspicious, then it slowly does.
- If you reach DC 5 with a major bad act (murder, grievous assault etc) you roll as explained before.
- If you reach DC 5 with petty things, you usually don't roll, unless the DM decides that enough is enough.
- Some acts like robbery etc increase the build up by 1, others by more. A sadistic killing (like the Talons impaling someone) for nearly no reason could give 3 or more. As such if you were at DC 4 and then you did a heinous murder using black magic to torture the victim, you could land a DC 8 or 9.

Jester: I added the backwards man. Please check for approval.

To the monster book? I'll give it a once over when I get my DMG.
Honestly, until I have a couple more months of 5e reading I'll probably be wary of using monsters.

I'm feeling more confident about my calculations and equations than I am on the rules in DMG.
If the DMG says CR5 and my equations say 4, I'm confident that chances are it's a 4.

[Jester of the FoS]

Power Checks Design Questions:

Should the GM roll or the player?
I've gone back and forth on this a few times.
As the narrative of the mechanic is the Dark Powers observing the action, the check should be the GM rolling for the powers. Having the player avoiding notice implies if they're lucky they can hide from the powers.
But traditionally it has been the player who rolled, and having a player roll emphasises that something is happening. Having the DM roll makes it mysterious, so the action and consequences are less connected (which is both a feature and a bug).

How many failures before becoming an NPC?
How many before being a monster? How many before being an NPC? And how many until a darklord? Five strikes? Three? Seven?
I believe there was six stages: innocent, pure/redeemed, the temptation, the caress, the enticement, the embrace, the descent. Does that still work or should it be simplified?

Should corruption be static or point based?
It's easiest to have set failures. Fail four-six checks and you're a darklord.

I like points. The idea being that you gain points based on the severity of your crime, and advance along the Stages of Darkness faster or slower. Which does a better job of representing darklords who go from 0 to corrupt in a few single actions.
I've done static points, but dice also work (and were used in my 3e/4e system), and seem less consistent and more unpredictable, which fits the enigmatic dark powers
.
But points are harder to track as they need to be marked down. It's more bookkeeping. It's far more complicated than I would like.

* * *

The base chance of failure should probably be 15%. That's a DC 3 (or a DC 18 if the DM rolls).
This can be modified by the DM's best friend (+/-2) depending on how evil the action is, and how thematically appropriate the failure would be for the campaign.
The check can be further modified by granting advantage or disadvantage. Favourable conditions grant advantage, such as being deceived, having good intentions, or acting impulsively. Acting selfishly or with forethought would impose disadvantage.

One possible alternative to failing is that after failing a Dark Powers check they keep watching and you automatically fail all future checks for the next day or so.
This might provide an alternative to direct stages, so five isolated evil acts isn't enough to make someone a darklord, an instead they need to fail a check and commit more evil acts in that window. For example, if someone is at Stage 2 they may need to do three evil deeds to hit stage three (or one *really*evil act). If they only commit a single minor act they don't become more corrupted, but it would delay any potential redemption.
Another potential benefit might be the ability to skip steps. For example, if someone at Stage 2 committed more than three acts within the window, they might skip stage 3 and go right to 4.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm feeling more confident about my calculations and equations than I am on the rules in DMG.
If the DMG says CR5 and my equations say 4, I'm confident that chances are it's a 4.

[Jester of the FoS]

Speaking of power checks, I think I would use a "build-up" kind of thing. You do stuff and you may attract the attention of the DPowers after a while.

About this DC 1 or DC 5... or even the PChecks with 2%. As it was discussed about the skills: If there's nearly no chance of failure, what's the point to rolling it?

So, I would say that PChecks build up till you have to roll with a DC 5+. It's a little more book-keeping but I prefer having a note of "Germe: PCh 3, Jiorm: PCh 1" on my notepad file than rolling for the 5% or 10% chance that something will happen.

Small things like low necromancy or lies just increase the build-up while major things like murder or soul-theft (magic jar etc) force a roll if the threshold is high.

I like it.
I'm tempted to merge it with my doom pool idea where you add an extra d20 to a Dark Powers Pool and roll that each time you do something evil.
But that's likely too complex.

It's also something that works as an optional rule.

Really, I should just have the base Dark Powers check rules and have some variants, like build-up or the "windows of sin" in my previous post

[Skyrock]

I too am against adding up low percentages and waiting until they become relevant - that is too much bookkeeping for small stuff. Either roll for the small stuff a Powers Check as a fire-and-forget affair, or skip the small things. Bean-counting kicked puppies and old ladies not helped to cross the street combines the worst of both approaches.

Should the GM roll or the player?

That is something I would leave up to individual groups according to taste and preferences, similar to how individual groups want to handle things like perception or trap finding. List the pros and cons of either approach and leave it at that.

How many failures before becoming an NPC?

Six steps are fine for me.
The 13 steps of DoD with a couple of free warning shots at the beginning depending on class and alignment (or the possibility to begin with a minor corruption when evil) also have some merit.

Should corruption be static or point based?

Static. Very heinous deeds should plainly be able to escalate you several steps up, possibly for a random amount.

The base chance of failure should probably be 15%. That's a DC 3 (or a DC 18 if the DM rolls).

What would you define as the baseline misdeed that gets ranked at 15%?
DoD would put into that neighbourhood dangerous unjustified curses (16%), lethal justified curses (16%), oath-breaking of your own faith (10%) or premeditated murder on innocents (10%).

[alhoon]

There were 6 failed power checks required to darklordship. There was a 5th stage, the creature.
I believe that works best... if there's a system for curses from trivial to lethal

[Jester of the FoS]

Put some stuff on classes in the document.

Also working on a mist pact warlock.

Mists Expanded Spells
Spell Level Spells
1st fog cloud, longstrider
2nd blur, detect thoughts
3rd haste, stinking cloud
4th confusion, phantasmal killer
5th cloudkill, modify memory

Name of Power
Starting at 1st level,
No idea

Mist Call
At 6th level, as an action you can conjure a thin pool of mist. The mist forms around you and has a radius in feet of five times your proficiency bonus, and remains for 1 minute or until you dismiss the effect. The mist moves with you but you can make it stationary on your turn. You can summon stationary mist to you as an action.
While inside the mist, as a bonus action you can teleport to any other place in the mist. Doing so makes the mist stationary.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

Grasping Mists
Starting at 10th level, you can summon writhing tendrils of mist to wrap around your enemies. As an action, you can cause each creature in a 15-foot radius circle originating from you to make a Dexterity saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. Creatures that fail their save are caught in the wispy yet solid tendrils and are restrained for 1 minute or until you end the effect as an action. A creature restrained by the misty tendrils can use its action to make a Strength or Dexterity check (its choice) against your spell save DC. On a success it frees itself.

Mist-Led
By 14th level, you can trap a creature in the mists, pulling them into a space between spaces. As an action you cause the mists to rise up to snatch a creature within 60 feet that you can see. The creature remains lost in the mist for 10 minutes. As an action, a creature lost in the mists can try to will its return with a Charism saving throw against your spell save DC. On a success the creature returns to the space it previously occupied, or the nearest unoccupied
space.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

Any suggestions? thoughts?

[alhoon]

Well, interesting idea.
I'm not sure about the black tentacles.

For 4th lvl, how about instead of EBT warlock gets dimension door? Or Locate creature?
For 3rd lvl, gaseous form instead of blink? Or instead of haste?

I'll think about the powers when I have the chance.

[Jester of the FoS]

Well, interesting idea.
I'm not sure about the black tentacles.

For 4th lvl, how about instead of EBT warlock gets dimension door? Or Locate creature?
For 3rd lvl, gaseous form instead of blink? Or instead of haste?

I'll think about the powers when I have the chance.

Black tentacles is one that works if reflavoured. Think tentacles of mist. But it was the last spell I added.

Hastle I like as the Mists distort time, so it works thematically. So does blink.
But really I left off gaseous form because, for a while, I was considering making one of the powers a "Mist Form" ability. If I don't keep that idea, gaseous form goes back on the spell list.
-edit-
Oh, and gaseous form is already on the warlock list, so adding it there confers no benefit...

[alhoon]

I don't think the spells should necessarily be out-of-list for warlocks. Warlocks know very few spells.
Yet, you make an interesting point about haste/gaseous form. Some of these could be warlock abilities instead of spells.