Healing, Herbal Remedies, and DRUGS!

You know something that bugs me about 5e? All healing is either magical or hit dice. Even the alternate ranger that Mike Mearls presented us a while ago in an Unearthed Arcana article (Which I previously reviewed), which ostensibly creates “poultices” to heal, doesn’t actually use poultices in any narratively-consistent way. They’re healing potions. All they did was change the word without actually changing how they function.

How a poultice is ACTUALLY applied.

See, I like running games where magic is rare, and healing magic is particularly rare. Therefore, there needs to be additional ways to heal wounds. And not just for PCs. PCs are adventurers. They have money to afford magical healing. They travel with clerics that can cast “cure wounds” on them.

But regular-ass people? What do they do?

They use the 7 secret herbs and spices, man! They have town healers and miracle men that gather flowers and grass and stuff, process it into something useable, and then administer it as best they can. Even alchemical substances are a rare find. Instead, they focus on herbal remedies. Actual poultices and pills that might take a while to work, but get the job done.

And you know what else 5e doesn’t have? DRUGS, MAN! DRUGS! I love drugs in D&D! It’s why the alchemist in Pathfinder was my favorite class. Again, this spawns from the same sort of problem I have with healing. The only way to gain these kinds of temporary benefits—bonuses to damage, advantage on skill checks, improved senses and awareness—is through magic. And that bones games without magical support (or without that particular type of magical support, like games that don’t have a cleric or only have a blaster wizard/warlock/sorcerer).

Therefore, I decided to amend that. Say hello to Herbal Remedies.

Boring Subclasses and the Knight of the Realm

The champion sucks. No, really. It does. It’s defined as an archetype that “focuses on the development of raw physical power honed to deadly perfection.” What does that mean? Nothing. “Me big, me smash” is all I hear. It’s a receptacle for Improved Critical and Additional Fighting Style. If someone were to look at a champion in the Realms, or Eberron, or near-any campaign world, they would never remark “Oh, man! She’s a Champion! That’s awesome!” Because “champion” is a meaningless title on a flavorless archetype specifically designed so players can imprint their own character concept onto it.

Champion, by Arankin

And that’s okay, to a degree, but I don’t think it should be the design goal of a subclass in 5e. Because subclasses represent a choice for a character. And, personally, I would prefer a choice that means more in the context of a campaign than just “hitty guy, hitty guy with specific hitty attacks, and magic hitty guy.”

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why the Player’s Handbook subclasses all, for the most part, totally suck. They have to be generic. Because if they’re too specific, then you’re selling a campaign setting with the core rulebook, which is the antithesis of a D&D core rulebook. It’s supposed to be generic enough to inspire you to create your own world. And if the Fighter archetypes were Purple Dragon Knight, Steel Legionnaire and Warforged Juggernaut, then people wouldn’t know what to do with them outside of their respective campaign settings. Just a little more inspiration in your class design, is all I’m saying. Commander, Dervish, and Duskblade. Doesn’t that sound more evocative than Champion, Battlemaster, and Eldritch Knight?

But why am I talking about this? Why am I bitching about friggin’ fighter subclasses?

Well, I’m writing a new campaign, right now. Part of that, for me, is creating a new setting into which I can drop my players. And creating a setting is more to me than NPCs and towns. It’s religions, and races, and classes. It’s every aspect of the game. It’s about creating a rich, living world where players want to get lost.

And a big part of THAT is the creation of subclasses that fit into the world. Almost all subclasses in this upcoming campaign are going to be homebrewed. The reasoning behind this is that, as mentioned above, I want to give the players something onto which they can attach themselves. In addition, I want to make a definitive line in the sand between players and common NPCs. There’s no “soldier” martial archetype because PCs aren’t just soldiers. They are commanders, special agents, assassins and swordmasters. It’s a bit of an objectivist view of D&D, where the cream rises to the top and some people are more special than others, but I feel that the very nature of D&D is already a bit Randian. Like superheroes.

But I’ve rambled on enough, and that’s not why you visited this page. You came for a new class archetype. Thus, consider this the first entry in my series on my upcoming campaign: The Beacon in the Black.

I present the Knight of the Realm.

Stunt Dice: A Story in Design Failure

I haven’t written anything in a while, have I? Sorry about that. Life problems, lack of inspiration, excuses, excuses, excuses. But hey! Here’s something new!

There’s been a bit of talk, lately, about failure. The big primary is the Angry GM, who wrote a Strong Article about failure in terms of the game itself, and how accepting it as a possibility can make you a better DM. He also touched on it later in a couple pieces, and I’ve seen the idea of allowing players to fail at tasks tossed around a bit on other blogs as well as on forums and facebook.

One thing that wasn’t really talked about is how to accept failure as a designer. Not necessarily as a DM, but stepping even further back into the role of game/campaign designer. I’ve always considered myself a bit of an amateur designer. My design work has never been published, but I’m still constantly designing new things, so I’m a designer. Ever since my very first game of D&D, I wanted to play with the system and make things my own. It, of course, manifested as a desire to carry around the same cool weapons as my favorite characters from fiction (in particular, I wanted to wield the Soul Edge from Soul Calibur when I was a kid). That desire shifted, however, as time passed and I learned more about the game in which I was participating. About the time I bought my first core rulebooks (edition 3.5), I had finally taken the step from player to DM. And as a DM, I wanted to make everything my own. I introduced new magic items, new classes, and new systems from my earliest days. I remember lancers, dragoons, hunters, mages, dark knights, and something I called the “Fearless” (a concept I’m still trying to make work). My first campaign boss had a Final Fantasy limit break (he was a dark knight riding on a nightmare, and he shot a giant purple laser beam). And this desire to create new and expanded options only grew as I got more and more involved in the games I played.

Pathfinder was a particular area of creation for me. Once the concept of Class Archetypes was introduced, I went wild. The archives of this blog are a testament to how much I wanted to create my own work. However, with that desire to create comes the inevitable result. Failure.

If you decide to create anything, you are going to fail. A lot. And that’s okay. In fact, it can be a good thing. It can be clarifying.

Take, for example, my attempt at Stunt Dice in D&D.