D&D 5E: Playing with (New and Weird) Conditions

I love Conditions. They’re a great way to standardize any system (since their beginning, which I believe was with the D&D 3rd Keyword system). Like many things in D&D 5E, I believe Conditions are underdeveloped (like Hit Dice, Death Saves and Exhaustion). RPGs have been doing awesome things with conditions, like Savage Worlds’ Stunned or The Dark Eye’s amazing conditions for clerics casting spells. Lets toy a little with ideas for new conditions (just for fun and because I’m bored).

So, here are a few crazy Condition proposals that I would love to use in my games. Not all are exactly new (check Intoxicated), but I assure you that NONE are playtested. I left those that I consider more problematic to end.

NEW CONDITIONS

Intoxicated

OK, I’m in the minority that loved this Conditions back in D&D Next (actually, I’m in another minority that thinks that D&D Next was more interesting than D&D 5E, but lets leave rants aside).

Intoxicated is what you get when your characters drinks too much, is hit by pixie arrows or is the target of a faerie dragon’s breath weapon.

Rules: you have Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Ability Checks, but you suffer 1d6 less points of damage (2d6 if you have 10+ Hit Dice). Once during your Intoxicated Condition, you can offer your DM a chance to roll for a random target (during combat) or to suffer a fumble (out of combat). If your DM agrees you gain 1 Inspiration (or, if you group uses that rule, 1 Plot Point).

Jinxed

This is usually a result of a curse, a fumble at dispel magic or just playing with forces that you don’t know about.

Rules: you can’t gain any benefit from magic (including magic items). This condition usually lasts until you take a short rest, but a beneficent DM can allow you Charisma Saving Throw at the end of your next turn (if the Condition is the result a spell in combat, for example). This is also a good Condition to inflict on Warlocks that don’t behave before their Patrons.

Numb

A typical effect of poisons, mind blasts, fey charms, sanity-shattering battles and even vermin attacks (or just a result of carousing and debauchery).

Rules: you don’t have access to your current hit points total. When you gain this Condition, your DM start to track your hit points in secret. She can tell that you’re fine (usually with half or more of you hit point total) or injured (close to 0 hit points), but nothing more.

Shaken

A strike to the head, a sonic attack or maybe been mauled by a giant creature.

Rules: you go last in the round. If you’ve already acted, you go last in the next round. If you’re already the last in Initiative order, you suffer Disadvantage on all Attack Rolls, Ability Checks and Saving Throws until the end of your next turn (and if you try to cast a spell you must succeed at a Concentration check DC 10 or lose the spell).

Tides of Chaos

Because magic should always be CHAOS!

This Condition is usually inflicted when an arcane spellcaster uses magic in dangerous places, toys with forces best left undisturbed or fumbles a Concentration roll.

Rules: at the moment of your DM’s choice, your suffer a Wild Magic Surge. This is a good catch-all Condition for players that like to negotiate with their DMs for more magic power (or for recovering “just that one 1st-level slot”). If your character falls in the last group, the DM is encouraged to roll twice and pick the most “interesting” result (or rolling just rolling twice and inflict BOTH results). This is another good option to “persuade” Warlocks to pay more attention to their Patron’s “reasonable” demands.

Weakened

I’m totally stealing this one from one of my favorites d20s - 13th Age.

A debilitating wound, a painful strike, a curse or poison.

Rules: until the end of your next turn or until you succeed at a Constitution Saving Throw (DM’s call), all your damage rolls are halved.

Wounded

OK, this is requires a little more explanation, because it is a self-inflicted Condition. Why would I want a Wounded Condition?! To keep fighting! Basically, this works like a Consequence from FATE.

You suffer a lingering injury.

Rules: when you suffer damage, you can reduce the amount by your Constitution Ability Score and gain the Wounded Condition. Roll on the Lingering Injuries table, page 272 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, to determine the nature of your wound (the DM call change it if it doesn’t fit with narrative). You can only be Wounded once.

NEW (GAME-CHANGING) CONDITIONS

Ecstatic

D&D 5E follows the “Boring School” of divine magic (i.e. you can’t remove class features if a cleric doesn’t follow his deity ethos). But sometimes divine spellcasters forget that their mojo come from a Higher Power. When that happens, or when you want to flavor/complicate an encounter, please use this Condition (inspired by the Dark Eye). It still needs to be tested (a lot) because I’m not sure I got what I wanted. Maybe a Exhaustion-like track, per type of character, would be better (but also require a lot of time, which I don’t have right now).

Divine spellcasters can suffer this Condition for breaking their ethos, fumbling a Concentration check, casting spells in the inner altar room of an enemy deity or in similar situations.

Rules: while Ecstatic you are consumed by your deity or source of power, finding difficult to act in a different manner. If you act in accordance with your deity’s ethos, you have Advantage on Attack Rolls, Ability Checks and Damage/Healing Rolls. Otherwise, you have Disadvantage on the same checks and must always succeed at a Concentration (usually DC 10) to cast a divine spell. Here are a few examples of Ecstatic-drive behavior:

• Cleric of Knowledge - protect and avoid the destruction of anything written in your sight (including scrolls).
• Cleric of Life - heal or protect a living creature, DON’T kill/hurt anything besides undead and fiends (but don’t seek combat unless cornered and facing those creatures).
• Cleric of Light - destroy the undead, banish darkness and keep light sources (in THAT order).
• Cleric of Nature - heal or protect animals/plants, DON’T kill animals/plants, kill ONLY aberrations and undead.
• Cleric of Tempest - destroy everything on sight. Collateral Damage is your god.
• Cleric of Trickery - always stunt, feint or perform an action different from a straight attack. Sow chaos and confusion. You can’t dispel illusions, reveal invisibles creatures and speak truths. You’re Loki from the MCU, have fun!
• Cleric of War - engage as many enemies as possible in melee attack, ALWAYS. Don’t leave any enemy alive, NEVER. Don’t heal anything besides yourself (so that you can kill more). Sail a road of blood and slaughter!
• Druids - heal or protect animals/plants, DON’T kill animals/plants, seek aberrations and undead to kill, and destroy as many artificial structures and urban terrain as possible.
• Paladin of Devotion - If there are aberration, fiend or undead around, destroy them first and forget the rest. Otherwise, fight fair and only one-to-one, never feint or deceive, be merciful (leave all enemies alive).
• Paladin of the Ancients - If there are aberration, fiend or undead, destroy them first and forget the rest. Otherwise, your top priority is protecting and healing elemental, fey, animals and plants.
• Paladin of Vengeance - If there are aberration, fiend or undead, destroy them first and forget the rest. Otherwise, target the most powerful enemy in sight and kill him, never retreat and don’t stop for “ignoble” deads like healing allies.

Ecstasy ir hard on mortals. While under this Condition, every other round, you succeed at a Charisma Saving Throw at the end of your turn or gain 1 level of Exhaustion. If you reach Exhaustion 6 while Ecstatic you are consumed by divine energy and dies. After suffering Exhaustion 1-5 from this Condition you shut yourself to your divine source. This removes Ecstatic but also all your divine powers until you get a short rest.

Momentum

I hate both whiff factor or just hearing “roll an Attack Roll” round after round. This Condition hopefully may change that a little. It can really change the pace of a combat, se be aware. I’m aiming for RPGs like 2d20, Chronicles of Ramlar and Warhammer 1st and 4th.

You attack swiftly, keep your enemies against the wall or otherwise has dominance in battle.

Rules: you can gain Momentum usually accomplishing a Trigger (there a list below). Only one side of the battle can have Momentum at any time (or none can have it): your side or the monsters’ (if there are more factions, then only one of them can have Momentum). That means that if the enemy gets Momentum, you lose it instantly (and vice-versa).

Here are the most common Triggers, to be adjusted or changed to suit the DM style and the campaign flavor:

• You’re the first to act in the round and you hit your target.
• You’re flanking and hit your target (only if your side is in greater number).
• You roll a Critical Hit.
• Your perform a stunt that change the tactical aspect of the battle (DM’s call).

There is one “Anti-Trigger”. If you have Momentum and roll a natural 1 or falls unconscious, the other side automatically gains it.

You can spend Momentum at any time (it’s not an action) to do one of the following:

• Grant Advantage to an ally (Attack Roll, Ability Check, Saving Throw or Damage Roll).
• Inflict Disadvantage to an enemy (Attack Roll, Ability Check, Saving Throw or Damage Roll).
• Force an enemy spellcaster to roll Concentration (DC 10) to cast or maintain a spell.
• Make an ally go next in the initiative order (only this round).

Unearthing Arcana: Hold Person

Wizard: I cast hold person!

DM: OK, the orc boss failed his save and is paralyzed.

All the players at once: I slit his throat!

DM: …

You probably heard that dialogue before at some point of your Referee life (or some variation of it). Which is actually quite acceptable. Yes, acceptable… not just because it is tactically advantageous, but also because RPGs are (or were supposed to be) open-ended games, a unique mix of mechanics and a freeform narration. So, theoretically, if you paralyze your opponent during combat, you can go for the killing strike. If your players never took that opportunity to mercilessly slay their enemies then congratulations: you have heroes at your table (that is rarer than it sounds).

Of course, maybe you don’t have a problem with Hold Person and the way it works like an “instant kill” spell at the lower levels of every edition of the game.

Let’s take a look at this spell.

Art by MattiasFahlberg.

OD&D’s Hold Person: A spell similar to a Charm Person but which is of both limited duration and greater effect. It will effect from 1-4 persons. If it is cast at only a single person it has the effect of reducing the target's saving throw against magic by -2. Duration: 6 turns + level of the caster. Range: 12".

OK, as many things in the first version of D&D, the spell entry seems both quite interesting and open-ended (also uncertain). What we can be sure is that Hold Person targets 1-4 targets and has big duration.

The first thing that stands out is the Charm Person reference. In OD&D, our beloved Charm Person where targets that fail their save are “completely under the influence of the Magic-User”.

After reading that we can go back to Hold Person. Actually, for someone like me (that come from BECMI and AD&D 2nd) is hard to see Hold Person as anything different than a paralyzing spell, but that seems to be the case here. If you interpret that Hold Person is just an improved version of Charm Person then things get a lot easier for the Referee (as far as I remember you can’t try to kill a target of Charm Person).

With AD&D 1st, Gary Gygax didn’t wanted to leave doubts regarding his spells. No sir. The duration of Hold Person here is shorter (but still enough for a combat) and it affects 1-3 targets. There is quite an extensive list of what type of humanoids are affected, although we do get the description that this spell “holds immobile” and “freezes in places” the target(s).

You can say that AD&D 1st started the whole issue. When a target is “immobile” and “freezed in place”, then it is safe to assume that the victim is helpless and that a coup de grace is in order.

BECMI and Rules Cyclopedia didn’t added much (besides the Rules Cyclopedia letting clear that Hold Person has an opposed version called Free Person).

AD&D 2nd didn’t changed things either, though it did added: “Held beings cannot move or speak, but they remain aware of events around them and can use abilities not requiring motion or speech. Being held does not prevent the worsening of the subjects' condition due to wounds, disease, or poison”. AD&D 2nd also kept the trend of reducing Hold Person’s duration.

Oh, and did I said coup de grace? Although the rule wasn’t first mentioned in D&D 3rd, that edition surely made it popular. In D&D 3rd the spell lasts even less and the target “may attempt a new saving throw to end the effect” (probably because they finally noticed is such an overkill spell). You can say that 3rd Edition was honest and let it clear that a paralyzed target could be the victim of a coup de grace and, thus, finally officialized the instant kill (and no, 3.5 and Pathfinder didn’t seemed to change anything… interestingly I didn’t found any reference of Hold Person in the Pathfinder 2E Playtest).

D&D 5E at least requires Concentration in the spell duration, which is a nice touch, but it doesn’t change anything regarding the “instant kill” aspect (and yes, 5E doesn’t have a coup de grace rules, only that all attacks against an incapacitated target are automatically criticals, which means that we are back to the “it falls to the Referee to solve the whole conundrum”).

I purposely left Holmes for last because it is has an interesting take on the spell: “Similar to a charm person spell. Affects 1-4 persons. Holds the person or persons rooted to the spot unless released or the spell wears out. Duration is 6 turns + level of caster. If cast at one person alone it reduces his saving throw by 2”.

For me leaving a target “rooted to the spot” and immobilized are different things. I find this version almost as good as OD&D’s Hold Person. Maybe the target is rooted by this feet (or paralyzed from the waist down) and thus she can’t be the target of a coup de grace (although I admit that it leaves spellcasters theoretically free to cast spells… and actually this interpretation kind of equals Hold Person to Entangle).

I also remember that when I played Baldur’s Gate I and II, a Hold Person spell created a shimmering shield around the victim (you could still hit the target for normal damage and, because we’re talking of a vidoegame, coup de grace wasn’t an issue).

OK, all this talk is because I usually hate Hold Person as an “instant kill” spell (too easy, too boring). Last week I bought the D&D 5E Starter Set and runned it for my kids as a straight tabletop RPG for the first time (I had tried RPGs before with them, but always with heavy alterations and lots of dynamic and ludic activities mid session). Because my kids love Super Mario Bros. I reskinned lots of monster and spells as effects that they would recognize from the videogames, and that included a version of Hold Person. That is when it hit me that I had just created not a reskin but a variant of Hold Person, to address the “instant kill” thing.

Here are others!

1D6 VARIANTS ON HOLD PERSON

1 - Magic Bubble - The target is trapped in a magic bubble that is indestructible from the inside (although disintegration might work) but any hit from outside will blow it (leaving the target unharmed). The target floats a few feet over the ground while the spell lasts and a strong wind might move him (like a levitation spell). The good side about this variant is that it doesn’t allow a save each round. (Yes, this is the Super Mario Bros. version I used with my kids and probably moves the spell to the Conjuration School)

2 - Force Shield - The target is restrained by a sparkling shimmering force shield. The shield provides light as torch and provides a weak protection, reducing damage by half against the first attack against the target (which can’t suffer any kind of critical hit or coup de grace). However, attacking the target grants him Advantage in his next saving throw to break free. (This is my feeble attempt of copying the spell from Baldur’s Gate and moves the spell to the Evocation School)

3 - Bilarro’s Equanimous Hold - The target is completely restrained by crackling ethereal bands. If the target suffers damage while under this cantrap, her attacker suffers the same amount of damage as crackling bands snapback. (Another variant that takes the spell to the Conjuration School)

4 - Mesmerizing Gaze - The target is so consumed by the caster’s presence that she can only stare back, immobilized. This version requires that the target can see the caster and the caster remains in line of sight. The charm can be broken if the life of the target is in danger. If the target is attacked he can make new saving throw as a reaction (notice that backstabs are still effective here).

5 - Planar Misalignment - The target isn’t actually immobile but out of phase with the current plane. He can speak or even move, but no sound will come out and she won’t leave the spot where she was hit by the spell. The target can’t affect this reality while under the spell’s effect and every attack against her has a 50% of being completely ignored. (Another variant that takes the spell to the Conjuration School)

6 - Under the nights of Arcadia - The target is enthralled by many sprites and faeries, falling under their enchantment and becoming paralyzed. The only difference here is that the faeries hate when other spoil their “fun”. So anyone attacking the target must also save or become affected by the spell.

Awesome art choice by SeaSkyMoon.